Highway use could become as safe as rail and air travel “within a generation” by adopting a more systematic approach to measuring and managing road safety risks, according to a new report.

 

Latest analysis of traffic collisions on motorways and non-urban A roads by the Road Safety Foundation indicates that road fatalities now outnumber deaths in all workplaces tenfold.

 

The report – which lists the top 10 most persistently high risk roads, including the A285 (pictured) – adds that an estimated 2% of total GDP is lost in traffic collisions annually.

 

“We no longer need accept road deaths,” wrote Road Safety Foundation chairman Lord Whitty in a foreword to the report. “The annual death toll can be driven towards zero and travel on our road system can be made as safe as on rail and air. It is a goal achievable within a generation.”

 

He emphasised that the same ‘systematic discipline’ to measuring and managing risks that is already in place across other industries now needs to be applied to highways.

 

According to the report England’s most persistently high risk road is the A285 between Chichester and Petworth in West Sussex, while as a region the South East has the highest rate of death and serious injury.

 

However this year’s most improved road – the A227 between Tonbridge and the A25 near Borough Green – is also located in the South East. Here Kent County Council has taken steps to improve safety including introducing speed limit roundels, yellow backed signs in hazardous locations and a routine signing and lining maintenance regime.

 

The report – sponsored by insurer Ageas UK – also identifies the highest risk road on Highways England’s strategic road network as a 23km stretch of the A21 between Hurst Green and Hastings in East Sussex.

 

(Image: Google Maps)