The major local authority roads in England see four times as many vehicle crashes as National Highways’ strategic road network (SRN), according to a new report.
The findings come from an annual crash risk mapping report by the Road Safety Foundation (RSF), which analyses the safety of road networks in England, Scotland and Wales. In Driving Change: Investing in Safer Roads, the foundation argues that investment in safety measures would significantly reduce fatalities.
The report states that putting £2.5bn towards such schemes for local roads could prevent as many as 17,000 deaths and serious injuries over the next 20 years. It suggests this would save nearly £9bn in the long term.
This year, 2% of England’s roads have been classified as high-risk, compared to 3% in Scotland and 5% in Wales. Risk is calculated using the volume of traffic on the roads and the frequency of crashes that result in fatal or serious injury (FSCs).
However, the crash rate on the major road network (MRN) in England is 41 FSCs per billion vehicle kilometres – four times that on the SRN, which is just nine FSCs per billion vehicle kilometres. Crash density on England’s MRN is also over three times more than for average roads in Scotland and Wales.
Dr Suzy Charman, the Road Safety Foundation’s executive director, said: “The high crash density and risk on the Major Road Network makes it a priority for road safety investment, and yet we still do not measure and track road safety performance on it.
“The opportunities to reduce death and serious injury are clear, and the impact of such investment would mean not just casualty savings but also tangible relief for an overburdened NHS and social care system.
“The investment portfolio opportunities that we identify in this report have high indicative benefit-cost ratios, which is why we are calling for ambitious investment in strategic, major and local roads.”
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