How safe are you on Britain's main road network?

8 July 2019

This annual report tracks the safety of the main ‘A’ roads where most of Britain’s roads deaths are concentrated, and which can be targeted.

This year’s survey shows, overall, the number of deaths on Britain’s roads has changed little since 2011. For the first time, the surveys compare the major route networks which are the responsibilities of different authorities.

Striking progress has been made in Scotland. Over three years, the risk of death and serious injury has fallen by 6-7% on both the roads managed both by national government (motorways and all major routes) and on all other local authority ‘A’ roads. Scotland notably has adopted international best practice by having a formal target for casualty reduction with detailed supporting partnerships. Travel on Scottish major routes now has a death and serious injury rate of 13 per billion vehicle kilometres, the safest in Britain and one of the safest in the world. Scotland now has the lowest deaths per head in Britain overall.

The risk of death and serious injury on the network managed by the Welsh government is nearly 40% higher (18 fatal and serious crashes per billion vehicle kilometres) than in Scotland.

This annual report identifies Britain’s most improved roads and persistently higher risk roads. It calls for a new tranche of high return investment from the successful Safer Roads Fund to address 75 persistently higher risk road sections identified.

Released alongside the report is a data portal containing tools which allow practitioners to interact with the data used in the report.

For the full story and comprehensive EuroRAP GB Risk Map downloads please click here.