Bad driving is main cause of death in British Army

SOLDIERS ARE being given special driving lessons after the Ministry of Defence found that 64 military personnel were killed in motor accidents last year - more than the number who died in war zones.

The Army's first road safety report, circulated to senior officers, found that 925 people were also injured in 9,075 road traffic accidents involving tanks and other military vehicles.

The Ministry of Defence estimates these accidents cost the taxpayer pounds 150m a year, including pounds 17m in compensation payments, pounds 14m in insurance claims and pounds 5m in repairs. More than half of all Army deaths are caused by road accidents, and 90 personnel were discharged last year because of motor-related injuries.

Ministers and Army commanders are so concerned that they are putting in new training procedures. Military drivers are being given lessons in handling new high-speed vehicles.

George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence, has a particular interest in the issue. As a young man he was seriously injured in a crash with an Army Land Rover while driving to Inverness.

The Quartermaster-General, Lieut Gen S C Grant, has written to all commanders telling them to make improving road safety a priority.

"We must recognise that road safety is the concern of everyone," the memo states. "It must be considered at every stage of training and on every operation. I wish to encourage commanders and all those involved in road safety to redouble their efforts to reduce the number of accidents, particularly through better training and improved command and control."

According to statistics from the MoD and the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, there are 23 times more road accidents involving military vehicles than ordinary cars. Last week a report revealed that speeding police cars left 15 people dead and 2,123 injured in a year.

The most accident-prone military vehicle is the new Land Rover Wolf, brought into service in April 1997. Although only 6,352 of the high-speed trucks are on the road, they have already been involved in 311 crashes and caused one death and 52 injuries in a single year.

Robert Key, the Conservative defence spokesman and president of the Salisbury branch of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said the existing training programmes were clearly inadequate.

"These are avoidable deaths and the military should take immediate steps to implement a programme of proper training in the use of high-performance vehicles," he said. "And drivers should be much more careful."

An MoD spokeswoman pointed out that military drivers were often operating in difficult conditions.

"You are often required to drive in rough terrain or difficult weather," she said. "Training is ongoing and rigorous. But the MoD is not complacent and road safety is taken extremely seriously. There is always room for improvement."