Saving lives for less


Organisation: Road Safety Foundation
Date uploaded: 20th January 2011
Date published/launched: July 2010


The Road Safety Foundation has shown that half of all fatal collisions are concentrated on just 10% of the network, a network of A roads outside major cities. This report maps the network where deaths are concentrated.

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With money so tight, we must re-think our transport priorities.

The Foundation has shown that road crashes cost Britain £18bn annually, some 1.5% of GDP. It has shown that half of all fatal collisions are concentrated on just 10% of the network, a network of A roads outside major cities.

This report maps this network where the deaths are concentrated. It maps the high risk roads which can be targeted. It identifies roads where some authorities have made simple, affordable improvements preventing routine loss of life.

It will astonish most that this report shows that significant loss of life can be stopped by measures as simple as getting road markings right on major A routes.

This practical evidence reinforces the Foundation’s estimation that a third of road deaths could be prevented with high economic payback with systematic attention to detail. Nor are these findings remarkable when looking at the policies of countries that lead in road safety. For more than a decade they have focused on the untapped potential from systematic attention to safe road design.

Saving families from the grief of sudden, violent death of a loved one is worthwhile in itself. Where money spent on road markings and safety fences is also much cheaper than the costs of emergency services, hospitals and the care of the disabled there is no sense in failing to make provision.

This report reveals the safety levels being achieved on the network which is the priority for action. No country in the world has achieved an examination on this scale.

Where high risk roads are left untreated, the public and MPs are now empowered to ask the right questions of those elected about the priorities they are setting.

For more information contact:
Dr Joanne Hill

External links:

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