10% of UK Roads Responsible for 50% of All Fatal Road Accidents

Road Safety Foundation releases fatal accident report

A new report released today by the Road Safety Foundation titled Saving Lives for Less has revealed that the most dangerous 10% of roads in England, Wales and Scotland are responsible for half of all fatal accidents.

The Road safety Foundation, which forms the British arm of the European Road Assessment Programme, looked at 28,000 miles of A-roads and motorways running the length and breadth of Britain. According to its findings, a minority of so-called accident blackspots are responsible for half of all fatal accidents. Scotland topped the list of dangerous roads, with more accidents per mile of road than south of the border. The single most dangerous section of road was unsurprisingly found to be the A537 between Macclesfield and Buxton, also known as the Cat and Fiddle road, which is notorious for its many twists and turns which lead to many accidents.

Looking at data from roads across Britain, the report’s authors drew a number of conclusions about the types and numbers of fatal accidents occurring each year on our roads; a third of fatal crashes take place at junctions, you are six times as likely to be involved in an accident if you are travelling on a single lane A-road compared with a motorway and one in four fatal or serious crashes on the roads surveyed involved a motorcycle rider. A more positive finding in the report was that the overall number of fatal accidents on these types of roads had fallen by 5% over the course of the past three years.

The thinking behind the Saving Lives for less report is that by targeting funds towards well known accident blackspots, it is possible to save money that would otherwise be spent paying for emergency services to attend accident scenes and hospital treatments for those who are injured. Examples given in the report of the kind of safety measures that can cut accident rates include improving the markings and road layouts at dangerous junctions, resurfacing roads with special high-friction road coverings designed to help vehicles slow down more quickly when braking and treating roads with chemicals to reduce skidding. The director of the Road Safety Foundation, Dr Joanne Hill, said that these solutions were relatively inexpensive to introduce.

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