The most dangerous road in the region revealed
SAFETY CAMPAIGNERS CALL FOR CASH TO IMPROVE ROUTE
THE North East’s most dangerous road is today revealed by safety campaigners urging the government to spend money and save lives.
It has been identified as the 3.6 miles (5.8km) stretch of the A193 from between the A19 and A1058 junctions in North Tyneside.
From 2013 to 15 there were eight fatal or serious crashes on it which involved pedestrians or cyclists, according to a report by the Road Safety Foundation charity.
It said the North East as a whole had the UK’s third highest rate of fatal and serious crashes during the two year period, working out at 27.6 per billion vehicle kilometres travelled on the EuroRAP network of motorways and A roads, costing the local economy around £390m.
In its Safer Roads Fund, the government made available a £170m pot of money to upgrade potentially dangerous roads.
Two in the North East – the A1290 in Washington and the A167 in County Durham – were identified by the Department for Transport scheme.
However, despite this, 206km (128 miles) of the North East’s roads are still classified as of “unacceptable high risk” according to the Road Safety Foundation.
Its research director, Dr Suzy Charman, said: “We’re trying to continue the work of the Safer Roads Fund.
“We’ve been helping local authorities come up with proposals to continue with sustainable investment on these high risk roads. There are over 6,000 km (in the UK) that are of unacceptably high risk which we have to tackle.”
In its report, Cutting the Cost of Dangerous Roads, the foundation has produced a map to illustrate risk on the roads and where it is at its highest on Britain’s motorways and A road networks.
It is calculated by comparing the frequency of road crashes resulting in death and serious injury with how much traffic each road is carrying.
The report says that with advanced technology and targeted investment of just £200m per year on the UK’s the most persistently dangerous A-roads in the UK, roads can be fixed before more people die.
Meanwhile a Road Safety Foundation/Ageas UK partnership has also launched a Road Crash Index www. roadcrashindex.org to show people how risky roads in their local area are.
Information includes the increase or decline in road safety improvement between 2010-12 and 2013-15; the financial cost of injury road crashes in each county; the cost per head of population; the risk maps of roads in each county and any improved or persistently higher risk roads.
On North East roads there were five fatal or serious crashes per billion vehicle kilometres travelled on motorways; 17 on dual carriageways and 48.4 on single carriageways.
Dr Charman said: “For every £1 we invest, you get £3 to £5 back in terms of crash savings.”
She added: “Road crash deaths in the UK must, and can, be moved towards zero.”