Danger: spilt diesel kills motorcyclists
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DIESEL SPILLS could be contributing to up to 6,000 serious injuries and deaths a year among motorcyclists, according to the RAC Foundation.
It says that careless refuelling of trucks and cars often results in large patches of fuel being spilt onto the roads which arc invisible to the human eye and therefore impossible for motorcyclists to avoid.
Over the past year 360 riders and their pillion passengers have been killed on UK roads, compared with 288 in 2002. While a number of factors could have contributed to these deaths, diesel spills are consistently brought up as a major cause of such accidents.
Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation. says: "We hope that manufacturers will undertake some research to see if they can design diesel vehicles that would not allow fuel to spill on to the highway."
• UK manufacturers to improve the Penn of all dtesel powered vehicles to prevent fuel spewing from overfilled tanks • All diesel drivers to be educated to avoid over-filling their tanks and to re-fit fuel caps correctly • UK businesses to educate fleet
drivers about the dangers that diesel spills can cause
• The government to launch a national publicity campaign warning of how hazardous diesel
spills can be to motorcyclists