SCOTTISH ROUTE NAMED UK’S HIGHEST-RISK ROAD

Astretch of Scottish road has been revealed as the most collision-struck in Britain.

According to police data, the A8 is tied as the most likely stretch of road for drivers to crash on.

The stretch of road that runs between Edinburgh and Glasgow saw 227 serious incidents last year – an average of nearly five a week.

The route was tied with the stretch of M6 running through Chesire and Warwickshire for total number of collisions.

The data was obtained by car leasing firm UK Carline, via a series of Freedom of Information requests.

Behind the A8 and M6 in the table of Britain’s riskiest roads sits Devon’s A30, which witnessed 213 serious collisions last year, the A35 in Dorset (173 crashes), and the A46 in Warwickshire (123 crashes).

Overall, Scotland saw the highest number of incidents among the 27 forces which responded to the FOI request. A total of 6,253 crashes were recorded by Police Scotland in 2017. Manchester appeared second, with 1,775 crashes.

The data comes in the wake of government statistics which show the number of deaths on Britain’s roads has reached a five-year high.

Jonathan Nolan, general manager at UK Carline said: “Our research certainly produced some eye-opening statistics regarding the safety of UK roads. Although the government and councils regularly enforce new driving laws and take steps to help people drive safely, we must take more care whilst driving and ensure our vehicles have adequate safety features.

“We hope our research has brought to light the dangers of driving on these particular roads and encourage people to be more aware of their surroundings.”

Some areas reported a particularly high proportion of accidents on a particular road. One in three of all major road incidents in Northampton happened on the M1 which connects London to Leeds, while following closely behind is the A35 in Dorset, which accounted for over a quarter of the county’s road accidents.