Roads must be measurably safer, says campaign group

In its Action for Roads proposals, the government has recognised that Britain is falling behind other countries and has announced “the biggest ever upgrade of our existing roads worth up to £50bn over the next generation”.

It is also proposing that the Highways Agency is turned into a publicly owned corporation.

With road crashes costing two per cent of GDP and other countries managing infrastructure in a new way, the Road Safety Foundation’s 2013 report “Measuring to Manage” calls for the new investment to be targeted so that the safety of the network is raised in a measurable way using world class techniques.

Dr Steve Lawson, director of the Road Safety Foundation, says: “Most recent improvement in road safety has come from car design and safer driving. The specification that authorities currently set road managers is to reduce crash rates in general.

"That approach is too weak and must be replaced, because it muddles factors over which road managers have no control – such as car safety, hospital care and traffic levels - with factors very definitely under their control such as roadside safety barriers or junction layouts.

"Road managers need not only money, but the tools and goals to measure and manage infrastructure safety. Many proposals in government’s Action for Roads are sound, but there is need now to focus on improving infrastructure safety itself in a measurable way.”

These words are reflected starkly in the report, which shows dramatically the dominance of crashes at junctions leading to serious trauma and of death from running off the road.

The report highlights typical improvements leading to major reductions in serious crashes. These include removal of roadside hazards (such as trees, rigid poles or lighting columns), the introduction of interactive warning signs, anti-skid surfacing and road studs. For junction crashes, improved layout, signing, lining, resurfacing with high friction treatments and better tailored local speed limits were common.

The report also notes the work of a group of authorities who have made significant improvements to their roads. A remarkable 70% drop in serious crashes – some 250 fatal and serious injury crashes saved – on the ten most improved sections achieved by a variety of infrastructure improvements.

The measurements of the safety of UK roads were carried out using international benchmarks developed by the European Road Assessment Programme.

Chairman of EuroRAP, John Dawson, comments: “With new investment, Britain can join leading countries which are raising safety in a transparent, systematic way. The British public knows the safety rating of the cars they’re buying but not their roads.”