‘Speed’ in most car crashes
Life-saving campaign launch
A national road safety campaign for drivers to watch their speed and anticipate hazards has been welcomed in Scarborough and across North Yorkshire.
Although North Yorkshire is bucking national trends and has seen a fall in the number of people killed on the county’s roads, speed as a factor in the county is involved in 69 per cent of car crashes, 11 per cent of motorcycle crashes and 8 per cent of van collisions.
And although, according to latest figures, the regional road death rate is down 20 per cent compared to a national rise of four per cent, 2.4 per cent of all road collisions in the county result in a fatality compared to 1.1 per cent of road collisions nationally.
This is largely due to the fact that the county has long lengths of rural A and B class roads where vehicle speeds are higher and journey distances are longer, compared to the mixture or urban, rural and motorways found across the country.
“We welcome this new na- tional campaign,” said County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s executive member for road safety.
“Every death on our roads is a death too many and though we are therefore pleased that the number of fatalities is falling there is more that we have to do and so we wholly support this Department for Transport campaign as it meets our own priorities.
“Our road safety team and partners in the 95 Alive road safety partnership work ext re mely hard t o get s afety messages across to the travelling public, but there is much more to do. We cannot afford to be complacent.”