One motorist killed or injured every day say road safety figures

Jun 30 2010 by Dan Warburton, The Journal

THE region’s most dangerous roads were unveiled last night as it emerged one motorist is killed or seriously hurt every day in the North East.

New figures released by the Road Safety Foundation sparked calls for improvements on the region’s networks as the true scale of the dangers posed were laid bare.

In the two years between 2006 and 2008, there were 746 crashes deemed to be “fatal and serious” in the North East, constituting more than one accident every day.

Among the worst roads in the region was the 6km stretch of single carriageway (A6076) between Sunniside and Stanley which saw six serious and fatal road crashes.

Meanwhile on single carriageways across the North East, there were 54 fatal or serious collisions for every billion vehicle kilometres travelled, compared with 19 crashes on dual carriageways.

And 1% of all the roads in the North East are deemed to pose a high-risk to motorists, the nationwide report revealed.

Last night Dr Joanne Hill, director of the Road Safety Foundation, said: “As the road budget becomes tighter, emphasis must be on saving lives with less. It means systematic attention to detail, prioritising treatment of the highest risk routes most likely to benefit from low-cost, high-return countermeasures.

“This year’s report shows that not only can Britain reduce road deaths and serious injuries but that, by targeting a relatively small mileage of high-risk roads, we can do so with good economic returns.

“Too often we pay for emergency services, hospitals and care for the disabled rather than taking easy steps to put road design faults right.