In a bid to enhance road safety across England, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced an additional £38.3 million to improve 17 high-risk local roads.
This supplements the existing £147.5 million of funding that was assigned to “life-saving improvements” on 82 dangerous roads in England. The largest financial sum of £5m was assigned to Devon County Council for improvements to the A361.
Planned improvements cover a range of measures, including the introduction of new junctions and roundabouts, improved signage and road markings, more road surfacing and greater landscaping efforts. Moreover, there will be a focus on improving pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes to ensure the safety of vulnerable road users.
Projections suggest that these investments could save hundreds of lives and drastically reduce serious injuries over the next two decades.
The Road Safety Foundation (RSF) praised the potential impact of these enhancements. RSF executive director Dr Suzy Charman said: “Systematic changes have already had a big impact on road death and serious injury, for example, seat belts and airbags protect lives when crashes happen.
“In the same way, we can design roads so that when crashes happen people can walk away – by clearing or protecting roadsides, putting in cross hatching to add space between vehicles, providing safer junctions like roundabouts or adding signalisation and/or turning pockets, and including facilities for walking and cycling.”
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: “The Safer Roads Fund is the hugely welcome gift that keeps on giving because today’s announcement means another 120 miles of safer road improvements will be delivered to the benefit of users.
“Such incremental improvements are key to achieving our collective aim for a safer road network as a whole.”
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