New national road safety targets must be introduced to tackle a recent increase in the number of casualties on Great Britain’s highways, the RAC Foundation has urged.

This week it launched a new report ‘Road Safety Since 2010’ – published alongside the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) – and ahead of tomorrow’s Department for Transport detailed casualty statistics for 2014.

These are expected to show that last year 1775 people were killed on Great Britain’s roads, marking a 4% increase on the year before, while 22,807 were seriously injured.

The RAC Foundation points out that there has been a general downward trend in death and injury on the roads over the past five years. However progress has varied dramatically across the UK.

Compared with the 2005-9 average figures show that by 2013 there had been a 40% reduction in killed and seriously injured (KSI) persons in London, a 34% reduction in Northern Ireland and a 31% fall in Scotland. But England (excluding London) fared less strongly with only a 17% reduction while Wales saw just a 6% decrease.

RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: “We should be proud of our long term road safety record, but new impetus is needed to protect it. It was a Conservative transport minister who set a challenging casualty reduction target in 1987. We hope today’s Conservative government will be persuaded to follow the same successful path.”

The report adds that the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and London have been the most ambitious, coordinating their road safety agendas across national, regional and local levels.

“Because of a lack of central focus and faced with swingeing budget cuts, English councils have not prioritised road safety and have seen a lot of experienced staff leave,” said Mr Gooding. “We also need to see more systematic sharing of best practice.”

♦ Transport for London has launched an interactive collisions map showing the number of incidents which have taken place at junctions around the captial since 2005. The aim is to help raise awareness of road conditions and encourage extra care at junctions. To view the map visit collisionmap.london

Photo courtesy of Alvey & Towers