Figures released today (6 Feb) by the DfT show that road deaths and injuries fell in the 12 months to 30 September 2013, compared with the 12 months ending September 2012.
Road deaths fell by 2%, serious injuries by 6% and all casualties by 7%. Total child casualties fell by 11% and the number of killed or seriously injured (KSI) child casualties fell by 15%.
Traffic levels rose by 1.1% in the same period, meaning that the casualty rate per billion vehicle miles decreased by 7%.
Comparing Q3 2013 with Q3 2012, there was an overall decrease in casualties of 3%. The number of people killed was unchanged at 470, while serious and slight casualties fell by 3% and 4% respectively.
Despite KSI decreases among cyclists (2%) and motorcyclists (6%), the IAM expressed concern that two-wheeled road users are “still a growing risk” and said they “must be given even greater priority for investment and education”.
While describing the Q3 figures as “reassuring”, the IAM’s Neil Greig pointed out that “a quarter of road deaths are a result of criminal driving acts such as dangerous driving, drink driving, careless driving and aggravated theft”.
Mr Greig called for “targeted action by the police” which he said could have “huge societal benefits”.
I wonder if when there is a drive off after an accident, then that is considered under stats to be a criminal act and would appear as such? Understandably someone drunk or on drugs, or a disqualified driver, would wish to evade capture – but so does the driver who simply fears the repercussions of their actions, and so drive offs increase the probability and stats of criminal activity.
Bob Craven, Lancs
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“Sounds like good news although one death is too many.”
A proper safety effort must have realistic objectives, and while we have large numbers of people with all their imperfections controlling vehicles which can obviously collide, there will be deaths.
Just imagine if we had one road death in the UK next year – would that be too many? For those involved, yes, but professional road safety efforts must look at the overall picture and find a compromise, and be able to determine if it has met objectives or not.
Too often knee-jerk reactions come from a death somewhere – closing level crossings, reducing speed limits, etc when a more scientific analysis and better consideration of the overall objectives everywhere would result in better overall KSI reductions.
Dave Taylor, Guildford
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“a quarter of road deaths are a result of criminal driving acts such as dangerous driving, drink driving, careless driving and aggravated theft” That’s interesting – presumably the vast majority of driving does not involve these factors, so these factors are massively significant in deaths – not that I find that surprising. You would also expect dangerous speed to accompany these kinds of problems. But does someone who is stealing a car think “oh yes, I went on an awareness course, I mustn’t break this 30 limit”?
So what proportion of the 7% KSIs with speeding only as one factor, involve these other more serious problems, which speed limits and enforcements clearly won’t help with at all? It has to be quite significant. So this seems to further undermine the obsession with speed as the solution to all the problems.
Dave Taylor, Guildford
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Sounds like good news although one death is too many.
Alasdair, South Mimms
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Perhaps similar to me, Rod, as I was killed or seriously injured when I was a child. It’s good to see that road safety has improved so that there are now fewer people like me these days, and I’m sure Rod would agree with that!
I would like to know where “a quarter of road deaths are a result of criminal driving acts…” comes from. Anyone know the source for that?
Dave Finney, Slough
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Or to put those child casualties another way, that’s over 500 classrooms of 30 children injured on the roads and 66 of those classrooms with dead and seriously injured children!
Rod King 20’s Plenty for Us
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Ergo three quarters of deaths are NOT caused by these bad apples. Would there not be even greater “societal benefits” to find out what caused those accidents instead?
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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