Britain's A Roads still the most dangerous

26 June 2009

Single-carriageway A-roads are rated Britain's most dangerous and 58 per cent of A-roads and 25 per cent of motorways fail to rate as safe, according to the latest survey by The Road Safety Foundation, which has tracked and classified the risk-level of roads for the last nine years. The busy non-primary routes - the ones that take volumes of traffic at all hours between towns and villages across Britain - represent the highest risk, accounting for 62 per cent of all road deaths

The 2009 EuroRAP Results show that the 6.5km stretch of the A675 between Higher Walton and the M65 (J3) is Britain 's most dangerous road, with more than half of all fatal and serious collisions occurring at junctions.

The latest research shows that a 43km stretch of single carriageway on the A40 between Carmarthen and Llandovery is Britain 's most improved road.

Lessons from this work by the Foundation show that now that most isolated blackspots have been removed, focus must be switched to target safety measures along the risky A-routes.

We need safe villages, safe junctions, safe roadsides and safe overtaking.

The economic case for a decade of action is overwhelming with nearly one per cent of GDP lost in road crashes on this network. Deaths can be prevented by safe road design, low-cost but high-return measures which will significantly save lives and reduce accident levels. A toolkit designed to assist with benefit - cost evaluation is available here.

RoadSafe, a member of The Campaign for Safer Road Design fully supports the Government’s proposals to strengthen the weak links in the nation’s road network set out in its current consultation A Safer Way: making Britain's Roads the Safest in the World.