Are there any statistics showing the likelihood of mainland Europeans crashing in the UK?
(my emphasis)
No, not that I can easily find,
Rural Scotland
The Scottish government publish the following:
Tourist activity does significantly boost road accident numbers in the rural tourist areas of Scotland and visitor drivers, including foreign drivers, are involved in a measurably greater number of accidents in the
case study areas.
- Half of the drivers involved in accidents in Scotland were within 5km of their home address and fewer than
2% were more than 240 km from it. However in the police areas of Grampian, which includes
Aberdeenshire and Northern which contains Highland, fewer of the accidents involved drivers who were
close to their homes.
- The involvement of tourists compared with locals in road accidents is probably not excessive in relation
to their numbers and the increased mileage they probably drive.
- The exposure data for foreign drivers is not adequate to establish whether they are at greater risk of an
accident than local drivers.
- The majority of accidents caused by foreign drivers arose from the drivers’ unfamiliarity with driving on
the left hand side of the road.
- The accidents caused by UK visitor drivers may reflect their lack of driving and overtaking experience on
rural single carriageway roads, since the crashes in which they were judged to be at fault involved losing
control, the negotiation of bends and collision with pedestrians or animals.
- Local drivers who had caused an accident were most likely to have lost control or to have been driving
too fast.
Tourist Road Accidents in Rural Scotland
Note the second point there.
It may be important to distinguish between "tourists", "foreign drivers" and "UK visitor drivers" - It isn't immediately obvious if the authors include Welsh, English and Northern Irish tourists in "foreign drivers". The fourth bullet point suggests not.
It is also worth noting that driving on rural roads in Scotland is very different from driving through London in the rush hour.
The report draws this useful conclusion:
The data revealed that foreign drivers appear to have
difficulty remembering which side of the carriageway
to drive on. This may occur when no other traffic is
around or when they come to the end of a single track
road and rejoin a two lane single carriageway, or at
view points and resting places
So, drill yourself to pay extra attention in those situations :-)
UK in general
There are some other UK statistics that might be used to produce some measure of the additional risk - if other data could also be found.
For foreign truck-drivers, the accident rates on motorways are eight times higher.
A third of accidents involving foreign lorries happen on motorways – nearly eight times higher than the national average rate for the UK's 70 mph highways – with experts blaming drivers unfamiliar with UK highways, driving on the 'opposite' side of the road and often blind-sided.
Daily Mail
For foreign drivers in general, there were 18,865 accidents in the UK in 2006 giving rise to insurance claims.
Insurance claims involving foreign EU drivers in the UK have grown every year from 2001 to 2006 according to data from the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB). Since 2001, collisions involving EU drivers have risen by 61.4% from 11,685 to 18,865.
AutoCar quoting Motor Insurer's Bureau
Unfortunately these figures are insufficient to work out the increased likelihood of foreign drivers having an accident in the UK - I think I would need to find numbers of drivers (and/or road-miles traveled) for each group)