Are public spending cuts causing more road deaths?

The number of people killed on British roads has been falling for so long that it is a bit of a shock to find that they actually rose last year.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, RoSPA, is concerned that cuts in road safety and traffic police may be partly to blame. The figures for 2011 for Great Britain, published today by the Department for Transport, show that road deaths rose by three per cent from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011.