A24 crash stats revealed

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) has revealed the annual number of collisions between 2005 and 2013 on the 20-mile stretch of A24 between the A280 roundabout junction, in north Findon, and the county border with Surrey.

The figures show there has not been a notable increase in incidents but there was a spike in 2007. There was the highest number of fatal incidents in 2013.

The number of collisions each year from 2005 to 2013 were as follows: 50, 64, 85, 60, 56,53,61,49, 63.

Jon Forster, Road Safety Team Leader at WSCC, said this stretch of road is not considered accident prone.

But he added that the single carriageway section from Horsham to the county border, does have a higher rate than the national average for rural A roads.

This stretch recently underwent a route safety review and works to improve the road markings and highway signing is due to be carried out this coming financial year.

Mr Forster said the incidents in 2007 did not appear to be connected.

He added that the high number of fatal incidents last year also were not related.

He said: “they all occurred on different parts of the route, one involved a road worker, one an elderly pedestrian, the others involved youngish drivers, one a single vehicle incident and the other involved another vehicle. “

Data showed that in 143 of the incidents, a causal factor was the driver’s failure to look properly.

The second highest cause was failure to judge the other driver’s speed or path.

Driving too fast for the road conditions - the seventh highest ranking cause - was a causal factor in 54 of the incidents.

This was closely followed by tail gating which was a factor in 44.

A driver/rider impaired by alcohol was a factor in 15 of the incidents.