Road safety organisations digest 2009 casualty stats
Road Safety GB, RoSPA, Brake and the IAM have all responded to the 2009 casualty stats released on 23 September by DfT.
The figures show a 4% decrease in total road casualties and 12% decrease in fatalities, compared to the previous year.
Road Safety GB and The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) both said the figures are confirmation that measures taken so far have been successful, and urge the government to continue to invest in road safety.
Alan Kennedy, chair of Road Safety GB, said: "These casualty statistics are testament to the excellent work being carried out by the DfT and road safety officers.
"It is vital that we are able to continue with road safety initiatives and partnership projects that are contributing to this trend of significant casualty reduction.
"We urge the government to ensure that future targeted interventions are adequately funded to enable us to continue to help those who are at greatest risk."
Neil Greig, the IAM’s policy and research director, said: “With these positive results, the worst thing to do would be to withdraw funding. If the results continue to improve like this we will be well below 2,000 fatalities by 2020.”
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) identified the error of failing to look properly as a big area for concern.
Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at RoSPA, said: “Failing to look properly is not just a benign bad habit – the latest figures show that it is involved in many thousands of accidents on our roads. However, it is a bad habit that can be overcome.
“There is an important message for pedestrians, too. Looking properly is as important when you are walking as it is when you are driving, so take care not to be dangerously distracted, whether by mobile phones, listening to music or being caught up in conversations with other people."
Brake, the road safety charity, has called on the coalition to introduce a strategy and challenging targets for cutting the ‘daily carnage’ on the roads.
Julie Townsend, Brake’s campaigns director, said: “We are calling on the government to take a bold stance, outline what their plans are for tackling this daily carnage, and adopt a long term vision of reducing road deaths to zero.
“In the current economic climate, we should be seizing every opportunity to reduce the huge social and economic burden of road casualties. There is a wealth of evidence that shows the cost benefit ratio of investing in effective road safety measures – and yet the government currently has neither a strategy nor targets in place for saving lives on our roads.”
Click here to read the DfT announcement about the 2009 casualty figures.
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