The Department for Transport have released their latest ‘Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain’ statistics. These figures have shown a significant fall of 16% in those killed in road accidents reported to the police as they fell by 16 per cent from 2,222 in 2009 to 1,857 in 2010. This is the lowest figure since national records began in 1926.

CIHT congratulates the UK Government and the Road Safety profession in their continued commitment to road safety, but there are still areas for improvement as every casualty has a devastating impact on those involved.

CIHT is keen to emphasise that ownership and responsibility for road safety will be delivered at both an individual and an authority level. This requires focus on both infrastructure (engineering aspects) and road user behaviour (e.g. drug / drink driving, mobile phone-related accidents, tackling illegal and inappropriate driving through training and enforcement).

In a constrained fiscal environment it is even more important that limited funds are used effectively. CIHT encourages local authorities to embed the importance of road safety in their key policy documents, work across departments and with stakeholders to ensure continued delivery of casualty reduction.

CIHT calls on UK Governments to ensure that all road safety interventions are intelligence led. It will be essential for the road safety profession to share best practice, and to learn from interventions that have not been effective.

John Smart, CIHT said:

“It is disappointing, in the year that the UN launches its own safety initiative, a Decade of Action for Road Safety with a stretching global casualty reduction target and having seen the success that a target driven strategy can achieve, that the present English Government has chosen to step away from setting a stretching casualty reduction target for the industry to strive to deliver.

The level of achievement in these latest figures cast doubt on the forecasts contained in the DfT’s Strategic Framework for Road Safety. At current levels, these will be achieved within 2 years and the government should set more stringent aims for the industry to seek to achieve.”