Seven in 10 drivers believe UK roads are now more dangerous than five years ago

Drivers believe that roads are more dangerous now than they were five years ago, according to new research.

A survey of 1,037 people found that seven in 10 believed that roads were more dangerous now than in 2014, while many though that the number of speeding drivers and people using a mobile phone behind the wheel had increased too.

Commissioned by road safety charity Brake in conjunction with insurance firm Direct Line, the survey also found that people believed that the number of police cars on the road had declined over the same period too.

Joshua Harris, director of campaigns for Brake, said: “Drivers’ perceptions tell us a lot about the safety of our roads and so it’s deeply concerning to find that drivers feel the roads are more dangerous than they were five years ago.

“With roads policing suffering severe cutbacks, and drivers noticing the decreased police presence on our roads, perhaps this shouldn’t come as such a surprise. We have to act to address the stagnation in British road safety by increasing police numbers, to deter and enforce against dangerous driving.”

Of those surveyed, eight in 10 thought that a visible police presence deters people from breaking the law, while another eight in 10 believed that there should be more police cars patrolling the roads.

However, in the past three years there has been a 15 per cent decline in road policing numbers in England and Wales, with just 4,457 full-time officers out policing the roads as of March 2019, according to Home Office reports.