[urlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297307/Country-roads-deadlier-city-Motorists-likely-die-rural-routes-help-takes-longer-arrive.html]Daily Mail by Ray Massey[/url] wrote:
Country roads deadlier than the city: Motorists more likely to die on rural routes as help takes longer to arrive
Rural Herefordshire is the deadliest place in the UK to drive
New tables were launched by Transport Minister Stephen Hammond
By Ray Massey
PUBLISHED: 01:59, 22 March 2013 | UPDATED: 01:59, 22 March 2013
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They may be idyllic - but beware: country roads are the deadliest places for drivers, new research has revealed.
New figures released by the government show that although more accidents take place in cities, motorists are more likely to die in a collision if it takes place on rural roads.
The high rate of deaths on rural roads is partly because such routes are more isolated and help takes longer to arrive.
Rural Herefordshire emerges as England’s deadliest county, with the highest number of road deaths compared to population density.
Deadly: They may be picturesque, but country roads are the deadliest place for drivers according to new figures
Deadly: They may be picturesque, but country roads are the deadliest place for drivers according to new figures
Some 36 people died in 2011, representing 0.76 people in every 10,000.
Herefordshire was followed by North Yorkshire (71 per 10,000), Wiltshire (67), Lincolnshire (64), Warwickshire (61), Cumbria (60), Leicestershire (59), Rutland (52), Somerset (51), the east riding of Yorkshire (50), and Milton Keynes (49).
Lowest with no reported deaths were Middlesbrough, Darlington, Slough, Portsmouth and the City of London.
The City of London also has the most crashes overall per 10,000 population - way ahead of second and third place Westminster and Surrey - and it also has the most crashes resulting in serious injuries.
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As well as showing just the raw number of deaths and injuries, the new online database also measures the figures against population densities, traffic levels, road lengths and local authority spending on road safety.
The tables were launched by Transport Minister Stephen Hammond at a road safety conference organised by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for transport safety (PACTS) called ‘Lies, damned lies and statistics: understanding road casualty trends and causes’ held at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
The tables also compare casualty rates against road safety budgets.
The council with the highest rate of people killed or seriously injured per £10,000 spent on road safety is the London Borough of Barnet - with 1,120 people killed or seriously injured per £10,000 spent on running costs such as road maintenance and repainting white lines.
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Barnet said the figures were ‘skewed’ because of ‘accounting issues’ linked to changes in the way it allocated its road safety budget.
Next from bottom was rural Northumberland - England’s least populated county - followed by and Rotherham.
The lowest rates of casualties for the money spent were seen in Ealing, Blackburn and South Gloucestershire.
Ministers say highlighting the best and worst performers will allow drivers and other road-users to see whether they are getting value for money from their councils in cutting the carnage rates on the nation’s roads.
As well as putting casualty figures into context, the site provides a mapping facility so people can see how many cyclists or children have been involved in collisions on a particular road.
Road Safety Minister Stephen Hammond said: ‘This new comparison website will give local residents a more accurate picture of their council’s performance in reducing road casualties and will allow councils to make more meaningful assessments of the work they are doing to improve road safety.
'If a council is performing particularly well, then I want to see them sharing best practice with others so that they can improve and people across the country can benefit.’
One silver lining of the economic downturn is that it is dramatically cutting the number of deaths on Britain’s roads, the PACTS road safety conference heard.
Since Britain went into recession the number of people killed on Britain’s roads has fallen by more than a third, from 2,946 in 2007 to 1,901 in 2011, according to a report from TRL - formerly the Transport Research Laboratory - launched at the conference.
Louise Lloyd, senior statistician at TRL said the economic mood of the UK is resulting in a fall in traffic volumes as motorists cut out discretionary journeys.
Safer: Urban roads are far safer for drivers because they are less isolated and it takes less time for help to arrive
Safer: Urban roads are far safer for drivers because they are less isolated and it takes less time for help to arrive
Drivers are sticking to slower speeds to save fuel costs, and drink-drive casualties are declining as people sacrifice nights out.
The ‘squeeze on spending’ is also resulting in a drop in young males taking their driving tests.
Miss Lloyd said: ‘It appears that in prosperous years people may have been over-confident in their driving style, taking more risks with speed and drink-driving for example.
'External influences such as the recession and weather patterns have caused people to be more cautious about their safety on the roads, leading them to drive more carefully.
‘It is this change in behaviour which is directly affecting the number of fatalities on our roads.’
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