British EuroRAP results 2018 – Getting Back on Track

The Road Safety Foundation produces this annual report which tracks the UK’s road safety performance across thousands of individual road sections, the 2018 edition of which was published on 30 October.

The level of risk is calculated by comparing the frequency of road crashes resulting in death and serious injury on each stretch of road, with how much traffic it is carrying.

The 2018 report, titled ‘Getting Back on Track’, identifies 40 persistently higher risk roads which ‘must be addressed with urgency’ – the cost of which is estimated to be approximately £75m.

The report says further sustained annual expenditure of £75m per year over the next five years could address the ‘appalling’ rate of death and serious injury across two thirds of the ‘unacceptably high-risk roads’.

In the foreword, Lord Whitty of Camberwell, chairman of the Road Safety Foundation, says the 40 roads should be addressed through the Safer Roads Fund.

In terms of regions, the risk of death and serious injury is highest in the South East (26 fatal and serious crashes per billion vehicle kilometres) and lowest in the West Midlands (17).

Risk on single carriageway ‘A’ roads is highest in the South East (60) and lowest in Scotland (34), while risk on motorways is highest in the South East and the East of England (7) and lowest in the North East (3).

11% of local authority roads by length are high risk or medium-high risk and as such have unacceptably high levels of risk. These roads carry 7% of local authority traffic.