The European Road Assessment Programme (Euro RAP) has published new road rating results for Britain and Ireland at a major conference in London. It is the first time that the international programme, co funded by the FIA Foundation, has published findings on Ireland.
In Britain, Euro RAP finds that a ‘mini massacre’ of motorcyclists on some rural main roads is undermining significant safety improvements. The impact of motorcycling is such that the most high-risk road listed – the A537, Buxton-Macclesfield – would be among Britain’s safer roads if there were no motorcycle accidents.
Other key results from the British survey include:
- British roads are getting safer – roads rated as high- or medium-risk for death and serious injury have fallen by almost 30% since 2002;
- The risk of death or serious injury on Britain’s roads is one of the lowest in Europe;
- Highest-risk roads are ten times more dangerous than the safest;
- Large numbers of motorcycling accidents on some rural roads undermine the overall improvement in the safety of Britain’s highways;
- On the most dangerous stretches of road, one person, and as many as seven, is killed or seriously injured for every mile over the three-year measurement period;
- 60 per cent of road deaths (more than 70 per cent in Scotland) occur outside built-up areas, mostly on single carriageway roads.
The study in Ireland finds that the risk of death and injury to drivers is ten times greater on some rural single carriageways in Ireland than the risk on motorways. More typically, ordinary single carriageways have six times the motorway collision rate and double that of dual carriageways.
Irish single carriageways have a collision rate of 11.5 fatal crashes for every billion vehicle kilometres in the Republic, 12.4 per billion in Northern Ireland. Remarkably, given their excellent road safety record overall, British single carriageways are no better with a rate of 12.4. But most striking is the fact that similar roads in Sweden are far safer. It is clear that there are lessons for Ireland to learn from Sweden in terms of road design and management, including the more widespread provision of crash barriers and ‘2+1’ lane roads.
For more information, see www.eurorap.org