There were 1793 fatalities on British roads last year – one more than in 2016 – which is the highest total since 2011.

“We appear to have reached a hard core of human behaviour related crashes that requires much more focus on driver training and quality,” said IAM RoadSmart director of policy and research Neil Greig.

“With seven years without progress it is clear that we have an increasingly complex picture of good news, such as safer cars and investment in new roads, being cancelled out by more traffic and a hard core of human behaviour issues that are the most difficult to tackle,” he added.

Figures also show that 24,831 people were seriously injured in road accidents last year, a rise of three per cent. The Department for Transport points out however that the increase is due in part to changes in the way many police forces now report collision data. Some serious injuries may previously have been classified as slight.

In all, there were 170,993 casualties of all severity on British roads last year, including 144,369 slightly injured casualties.

Fatalities among car occupants (787) fell 4% on the previous year and for pedestrians the figure (470) was 5% higher. Pedal cyclist deaths (101) reduced by 1% but among motorcyclists the number of fatalities (349) jumped by 9%.

Road safety charity Brake’s campaigns director Joshua Harris lamented the “shocking lack” of progress on road safety. “Our laws are only as strong as their enforcement and roads policing is fundamental to improving UK road safety,” he said. “Shockingly, the number of traffic officers fell 24% from 2012 to 2017 and the stagnation in road safety performance shadows this trend. We urge the Government to make roads policing a national investment priority.”

Pedestrian charity Living Streets’ head of policy Tanya Braun added: “The current justice system is simply not an effective deterrent to dangerous behaviour. We are calling for an urgent review of how the justice system deals with mistakes, carelessness, recklessness and deliberately dangerous behaviour by all road users.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “Britain has some of the safest roads in the world and the number of fatalities has fallen by 44% over the last 10 years, but we are determined to do more.

“We continue to work closely with road safety groups to develop common sense proposals that balance tougher penalties for dangerous drivers with help for road users to stay safe.”

Photo Credit: IAM RoadSmart