Crash statistics show ‘lack of progress’ on UK road safety

IAM RoadSmart is calling on the government to get tough with road safety after the UK saw another year of “no real improvement” on UK road deaths.

The charity is calling for the government to show “real leadership to drive down death and injury on UK roads”, after 2019’s road crash statistics showed just a 2% reduction in road deaths.

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Provisional figures for 2019, Reported road casualties in Great Britain: provisional results 2019, revealed there were 1,748 reported road deaths, compared to 1,784 in 2018. Although this is, a welcome 2% reduction, it still marks an eight-year period of no significant reduction in deaths on the UK’s road network. Breaking the stats down and it translates to an average of almost five people being killed on the UK’s roads every day.

Fatalities for older road users – aged 60 and over – was the largest increase for any group increasing by eight percent from 588 in 2018 to 637 in 2019.

Neil Greig, IAM RoadSmart’s Director of Policy & Research, said:

“These results are frankly embarrassing. We need UK Government to show real leadership and push road safety up the political agenda if we are to see a return of year-on-year improvements.

“Some quick wins could include: graduated driver licencing, more traffic police on the roads, a new approach to older drivers – such as an eye test on licence renewal at 75, mature driver assessments on prescription and more powers for the Health and Safety Executive to insist on good driver risk management across UK business.”

IAM RoadSmart expects 2020 to be a unique year, due to COVID-19, and comparisons with previous years will almost certainly not be possible. But with 2020 results not being published for another year the true impact of the pandemic on road deaths in the UK will not be clear for some time.