Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the number of cyclists who have died due to potholes on roads in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in each of the last five years.

The Department does not collect data on the cause of road accidents, or on potholes in road accidents specifically.

Contributory factors assigned by police officers do not assign blame for the accident to any specific road user, however they do provide some insight into why and how road accidents occur. They give an indication of which factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident. Officers do not need to carry out a full investigation of the incident before allocating contributory factors; they usually use professional judgement about what they can see at the scene.

The number of reported pedal cyclist fatalities in England where a contributory factor of ‘poor or defective road surface’ was reported in the personal injury road accident, for the last five years, is provided in the table.

Reported pedal cyclist fatalities in road accidents where 'Poor or defective road surface' was reported as a contributory factor, selected areas, 2015 to 2019

Road safety statistics are reported on a calendar year basis. The latest annual published statistics are for 2019. Data on reported personal injury road accidents in Great Britain for 2020 will be published in September 2021.