Road Traffic Accident Statistics no comments
Road safety in the UK is a very important matter and an often debated subject between government officials. A large amount of the budget every year is spent on the maintenance and improvement of the UK roads and road safety techniques. This money is clearly put to good effect as the UK fairs very well compared to other countries in Europe for road safety and also outperforms the United States, Australia and Japan too.
The UK has seen a steep and consistent decline of road traffic accidents over the last 50 years as road safety techniques have improved too. At the same time deaths on the road have also fallen by a huge amount despite a rise in the UK’s population and number of vehicles on the road. In the last five years the decline has slowed slightly as the state and policing of UK roads has not altered much.
Road traffic accidents can involve any road user from bus to pedestrian or from car to bicycle. Of the accidents which occur, a huge number is where two or more cars collide with each other, second are cars colliding with pedestrians. These facts are backed up by the number of fatalities in 2007 caused by road traffic accidents where 49 per cent are car collisions and a staggering 22 per cent are collisions with pedestrians. The remaining fatalities come from motor cyclists, cyclists and other vehicles which are 20, 5 and 4 per cent.
When compared to only a year earlier in 2006, the total number of fatalities fell by seven per cent whilst all road traffic accident caused injuries fell by four per cent. In 2002 The distribution of road traffic accidents across the UK shows that a small eight per cent of accidents occurred on the motorway whilst almost 60 per cent occurred on urban A roads.
The over population and congestion of London is clearly demonstrated by an astonishing 97.2 per cent of all accidents taking place on urban A roads leaving only 2.8 per cent to split between the surrounding motorways and rural B roads where the speeds are generally higher.