The first detailed assessment of the safety design of UK roads has been published by the European Road Assessment Programme (Euro RAP) at an international conference in London.
More than 7000 km of UK roads were surveyed in 2006-07 in trials jointly funded by the UK Highways Agency and the IAM Motoring Trust. Overall the survey found that scores for motorways are significantly higher than for Class A roads - about half of motorways and about 10% of Class A roads scored 4-star. However, 2% of motorways and 42% of Class A roads scored less than 3 stars. For detailed results see www.eurorap.org
The Make Roads Safe campaign was also presented at the Euro RAP conference, and many delegates signed the campaign’s petition to the UN calling for a UN Ministerial Conference. Speakers at the conference included the new UK road safety minister, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, and road safety experts from UK, Sweden, Poland, Australia and Spain discussed issues including progress on the pilot projects for the International Road Assessment Programme (IRAP), currently being completed in South Africa, Costa Rica, Malaysia and Chile, with funding from the FIA Foundation.