Half of Britain’s Road Deaths Occur on Just 10% of Roads

An assessment of 45,000km of roads across Britain has found that busy A roads - which take volumes of traffic at all hours between towns and villages - represent the highest risk.

The assessment was undertaken by the Road Safety Foundation using EuroRAP Risk Mapping and Performance Tracking processes. The assessment also found that overwhelmingly, the UK's highest-risk roads are single-carriageways, where lanes of opposing traffic are separated by nothing more than a splash of paint.

As well as highlighting high-risk roads, the assessment also found that on Britain's 10 most improved roads, the number of fatal and serious crashes halved in the last 3 years from 600 to under 300.

The A40 between Carmarthen and Llandovery claimed the honour of most improved road after the number of deaths and injuries was cut by 80%. The improvement was attributed to measures such as road surface upgrades, intersection design and traffic calming.

The report is available for download at www.eurorap.org.

August 2009.