UK’s most dangerous roads account for nearly two-thirds of fatal crashes
A handful of rural A-roads account for most fatal crashes in the UK, a new study has discovered.
The report by The Road Safety Foundation found that 60 per cent of all road deaths in 2017 happened on just 12.5 per cent of the roads surveyed.
The stretch between the A6 and A53 on the A5004 in Derbyshire topped the list of persistently higher risk rural roads, followed by the A3055 between Freshwater and Ryde on the Isle of Wight, and the A645 in Wakefield between the A638 and A639.
It is urging government ministers to increase safety on the roads.
A report out today from The Road Safety Foundation has called for two clear actions to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured in crashes https://t.co/efE4mp4amn#roadsafetypic.twitter.com/aPfzHhR3Im
— Road Safety Support (@road_ss) July 4, 2019
Kate Fuller, acting executive director of the charity, said: “Our main road networks need to be safe. So much of our travel is on these intensely used networks that any flaw in their in-built safety means tragedy sooner rather than later.
“Years of work in Scotland, coupled with widely adopted formal casualty reduction targets, is delivering results, and Scotland’s main road network is now safer than England’s and significantly safer than that of Wales.
“For England to achieve similar results, the newly defined major road network – with more than four times as much risk as Highways England’s network – needs disciplined safety goals.
“The government must release new funding from the successful Safer Road Fund to address the 75 persistently higher risk roads.”
On average, 73 people were killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads every day during 2017, with road crashes costing the taxpayer £35 billion. In contrast to the number of people killed on rural roads, just 5.5 per cent of fatal casualties in 2017 occurred on motorways.
