One motorist killed or injured every day say road safety figures

Jun 30 2010 by Dan Warburton, The Journal

“There are practical examples of how, with attention to detail, some authorities are slashing the toll of death and serious injury on high-risk stretches by as much as three-quarters.

“Simple, relatively inexpensive engineering measures, such as improvements to signing and lining, resurfacing and the layout of signals at junctions, are paying dividends and are affordable particularly when done as part of well planned routine maintenance.”

The North East’s most improved road was the A67, a 16km single-lane stretch of road that runs between Crathorne, in Cleveland, and Darlington, in County Durham.

The number of fatal and serious accidents dropped from 22 between 2003 and 2005, to just seven in the following two years. And the drop in the number of accidents was attributed to the installment of vehicle activated signs, improved signing and lining, drainage, improvements and road resurfacing.

AA president Edmund King said: “This report shows that road safety should be able to continue to improve during the current period of austerity.

“Dangerous stretches must be targeted – with both engineering and education-backed enforcement.

“This will be much more effective than any kind of blanket restriction on either urban or rural roads.

“Rural roads account for over half of all road deaths, with nearly two-thirds of these happening on rural A roads. The new figures show that half of these fatalities occur on one tenth of the road network, and that many lengths of rural road have seen drastic improvement in recent years at relatively little cost.

“This must continue.”