With only 7 days left, support Talking-up Scotland's work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details or by direct bank transfer method - John Robertson, Sort code 08-91-04, Account 12266421
Professor John Robertson OBA
In the last week, BBC Scotland have been dwelling on an A9 crash with a view, it seems, to fuelling the narrative that it is a dangerous road and one which is dangerous because the SNP has not dualed it.
Neither reports offers any accident figures to contextualise the stories.
These two reports are an attempt to keep the narrative alive and follow this from August 2025:
says there should be driving restrictions on foreign visitors. Chris Strong from Chicago lost his wife, mother-in-law and brother-in-law after their car made a wrong turn was hit by a lorry near Newtonmore in 2022. Initial work to make the A9 safer by dualing it was due to be finished this year but has been hit by delays and rising costs. Ministers say….
There is no meaningful connection with the type of road and deaths resulting from a mistaken right turn into traffic and as we’ll see below the dualed and non-dualed sections are equally safe/dangerous.
We, and the BBC already know this:
What’s the truth on safety?
Massive fall in A9 road deaths
From a Freedom of Information request – A9 incidents, accidents and fatalities between January 2020 – 2024, published today, we can report that overall deaths fell dramatically from 12 in 2022 to 4 in 2023. https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400397957/
2 of the deaths took place on non-dual carriage-ways and 2 on the supposedly safer dualled sections.
The FOI result was, I suspect a big disappointment to the opposition MSP or opposition journalist (BBC) who wasted more than £300 of taxpayer money rooting for it.
After a very bad year in 2022, as tourists flocked back, when 13 died compared with the 2011-2022 average of 5.4, in 2023, 3 died and 2 of them on the already dualled sections.
Scotland’s roads revealed to be safest in UK
In addition to the above good news on Scotland’s supposed ‘killer road’, two much ignored facts:
First:
As of July 2023, 335 people had been killed on the Perth-to-Inverness stretch of the road since 1979 (an average of 7.6 death per year), 59 of which occurred between 2011 and 2022 (an average of 5.4 deaths per year).
With only 3 in 2023, the trend, regardless of supposed ‘SNP betrayal’ is clear.
Second:
Compared to the rest of Britain, however, Scotland is the safest area overall, with 1.32 road accidents per 1,000 of the population, compared with 1.51 in Wales and 2.05 in England. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23424294.argyll-bute-scotlands-deadliest-roads/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Roads, of themselves, are neither ‘dangerous’ nor ‘safe’. They are just inanimate materials for vehicles to travel on.
The danger – and safety – arises from the behaviour of drivers on these roads.
LikeLiked by 3 people