Car Accidents > News
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Serious Accidents On UK Roads Slashed By Inexpensive Safety Measures
Wed, 25 May 2011

Safety measures introduced on 15 roads across the UK have helped cut the number of road-related deaths and serious injuries by more than 300, according to the Road Safety Foundation (RSF).

The RSF said that simple inexpensive solutions such as better road signs and markings, improved junction designs, speed enforcement and road resurfacing on the 15 roads helped reduce the number of fatal and serious-injury accidents from 494 in 2004/2006 to 190 in 2007/2009.

The most-improved road in the UK was a 6.9-mile stretch of the A4128 from Great Missenden to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where the number of fatal and serious crashes fell from 19 in 2004/06 to just two in 2007/09 following road improvements.

Similarly, the number of fatalities and serious injuries on a six-mile section of the A74M to junction 44 of the M6 near Carlisle dropped from 15 in 2004/06 to two in 2007/09 following the completion of the missing link section of motorway known as the Cumberland Gap in 2008.

On the other end of the scale, the most "dangerous" road was revealed to be a 7.5-mile section of the A537 from Macclesfield to Buxton in Derbyshire.

Dr Joanne Hill, director of the RSF, said: "These are practical, largely inexpensive solutions which will pay back the costs of investment in an average of 10 weeks and go on saving lives and saving money for the nation for many years to come. Much of this remedial work can be done as part of routine maintenance."

"The lesson of the 'Cumberland Gap' is that motorways are Britain's safest roads and that there are safety dividends from upgrading deficits in safety features on busy dual carriageways."
add to favouritesnewsletterlink to this pagesend to friendpost comments

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.