Road casualties on the wane

The number of people killed or injured on Greater Manchester’s roads has fallen by more than 70 a month in the last year, according to the Department for Transport.

A total of 71 people lost their lives across Greater Manchester in 2008/09.

There were 755 seriously injured and another 8,871 slightly hurt on the region’s roads, compared with 836 seriously injured and 9,632 slightly hurt in 2007/08.

Therefore, overall casualty rates for deaths, serious injuries and minor injuries in the region fell from 10,549 to 8,871 — an 8 per cent decrease. Nationally, the number of people killed or injured on Britain’s roads reached its lowest annual total since records began in 1926.

The 2,538 killed on Britain’s roads in the calendar year of 2008 was 14 per cent down on 2007 and less than one-third of the highest post-war figure, which was nearly 8,000 in 1966.

Similarly, the 28,567 who were killed or seriously injured last year represented a 7 per cent reduction on the total 12 months earlier.

It meant the Government had already met its target of a 40 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads by 2010, compared with the mid-1990s average.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said: “Every death on the road is a terrible tragedy, but these figures show that, every day last year, one less person died on the roads than in 2007.”

Despite the overall fall nationally, 124 children were killed on the roads last year — three more than in 2007.

The Conservatives have criticised the Government’s plans to cut speed limits from 30 to 20mph in urban areas with high accident rates — and from 60 to 50mph on problem rural roads — as a step too far.

Britain recently came under fire in a European survey, in which experts found that half of its A-roads could not be rated as safe.