The crash rate on major local authority roads in England is four times that on National Highways’ strategic road network (SRN), a new report has found.
The Road Safety Foundation’s (RSF) annual crash risk mapping report argues that investing £2.5bn in road safety schemes – mostly in local roads – could prevent more than 17,000 deaths and serious injuries over the next 20 years, saving society nearly £9bn.
Driving Change: Investing in Safer Roads analyses the performance of road networks in England, Scotland and Wales, identifying opportunities to invest in road safety schemes based upon the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) that should be achievable on each road.
It also contains a map showing the statistical risk of a fatal or serious injury crash occurring on Britain’s motorway and ‘A’ road network from 2020 to 2022.
The risk is calculated by comparing the frequency of road crashes resulting in fatal or serious injury (FSCs) on every stretch of road, and the volume of traffic each road is carrying.
This year, 2% of England’s roads are classified as high-risk, rising to 3% in Scotland and 5% in Wales.
But the crash rate on the English local authority roads identified by the Government as the major road network (MRN) is 41 FSCs per billion vehicle kilometres, compared with nine FSCs per billion vehicle kilometres on the SRN.
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