Transport Scotland has revealed the number of injury accidents on the A9 Perth to Inverness road within the past four years.
A Freedom of Information request sent to Transport Scotland showed the number of personal injury accidents on the A9 trunk road between Inveralmond Roundabout to Longman Roundabout.
The road runs for more than 110 miles between the two cities, however, only 30 miles is dualled leaving bottlenecks when merging on to single carriageway.
Transport Scotland says that the data does not include the roundabouts themselves, and the 2024 data only goes up to August 1.
Accidents higher on non-dualled sections of A9
The number of injury accidents, including fatalities, was on average higher on roads where there was no dual carriageway.
In 2022, there were 27 injury accidents on non-dual carriageways while there were 5 on roads that are dualled.
Interestingly, in 2021, there were more injury accidents on dual carriageways compared to single carriageway sections.
Data shows there were seven fatal accidents on single carriageways of the A9 in 2022.
This is compared to other years where, with the exception of 2024, there has been one fatal accident on single carriageways.
Despite the data from 2024 only including up to August of this year, there has already been five fatal accidents.
The Press and Journal previously reported on ten days of A9 chaos from late July to the beginning of August.
Five crashes happened within that time – with eight people being sent to hospital.
Bill Lobban, councillor for Badenoch and Strathspey, has been demanding action on the A9 for more than a decade.
Persistent push to dual full A9
Speaking to The Press and Journal in August, he said no-one should face losing their life over a mistake.
He said: “They need to dual the A9 from beginning to end.
“There’s no doubt about it, bad driving is a contributory factor but you shouldn’t lose your life because you make a mistake and by dualling it, particularly in the areas of the junctions, you would remove the opportunity for people to make a mistake.”
Read more about A9 dualling here;
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