Skip to main content

Road deaths still not reducing, says PACTS

The road casualty statistics for Great Britain just released by the Department for Transport (DfT) are worrying in a number of ways, says the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS). They show no reduction in drink-drive deaths since 2010 – remaining at 240 deaths a year and no reduction in total road deaths and a two per cent increase in serious casualties in the past 12 months (to 31 March 2016). Seven police forces, including the largest ones, Metropolitan and Greater Manchester
August 5, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The road casualty statistics for Great Britain just released by the 1837 Department for Transport (DfT) are worrying in a number of ways, says the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS).

They show no reduction in drink-drive deaths since 2010 – remaining at 240 deaths a year and no reduction in total road deaths and a two per cent increase in serious casualties in the past 12 months (to 31 March 2016).

Seven police forces, including the largest ones, Metropolitan and Greater Manchester, have not submitted casualty reports in time, forcing the DfT to estimate the figures for Quarter 1 of 2016.

Commenting on the figures, David Davies, executive director of PACTS said, “The Government is failing in its manifesto commitment to reduce the number of road users killed or seriously injured every year. There has been very little reduction in these figures since 2010. The number of deaths involving drink driving is stuck at 240 a year and the estimated total deaths in the past 12 months is only slightly lower than it was five years ago.

“We need to see stronger action on a range of fronts, particularly drink-driving which accounts for 13 per cent of all deaths.

“A separate issue that is becoming increasingly evident is the vulnerability of the entire casualty reporting system to lack of prioritisation by some police forces. The Home Office needs to make clear that accurate and timely reporting is essential.”

Related Content

  • Road safety award for average speed scheme
    November 28, 2014
    A route enforcement and casualty reduction scheme on the strategic A14 in the UK has won a prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. The A14 route between the Midlands and East Anglia operates at the national speed limit of 70mph as a dual carriageway with central reserve and no hard shoulder. The average annual daily traffic figure is 74,000 and with no motorways or other high standard diversion routes along this corridor, journeys can be seriously delayed when congestion or collisio
  • IAMRoadSmart: Over a third of police use mobile safety camera vans
    February 2, 2018
    More than a third of UK police forces used mobile safety camera vans to prosecute over 8,000 drivers for not wearing seatbelts and around 1,000 with a mobile phone in their hand in, according to IAM RoadSmart’s freedom of Information request in 2016. It was submitted to 44 police forces which revealed that 16 of them used pictures from the cameras in their vans to pursue these offences as a matter of routine while a further four did so occasionally.
  • 'Dazzling sun' is VRU danger
    November 2, 2022
    Cycling UK says that drivers must take more care when sun is lower in the sky
  • Clearview launches ROI calculators for road safety schemes
    December 5, 2017
    Clearview Intelligence (CI) has launched two free to use Return on Investment (ROI) calculators to assist highway professionals in showing the benefit of improving road safety on their network. The tools are said to demonstrate how road safety schemes pay for themselves during their lifetime as well as quantify the number of lives saved and injuries prevented. Designed for SolarLite Active Road Stud installations and the other for combination road safety solutions, the tools use the costs of accidents from