The Department of Transport has published 'provisional' national statistics on road casualties in Great Britain for 2006, from accident casualties reported to the police.
Although the government quickly points out a reduction in the amount of people killed or seriously injured on our roads in 2006 compared with 2005 – 31,540 down from 32,155 – the number of fatal collisions has actually risen slightly, from 2913 in 2005 to 2920 last year.
In other words, even though factors such as improved crash protection in cars are having an effect, the number of serious accidents that lead to a fatality is actually increasing – despite the aforementioned improvements.
Paul Smith, founder of Safespeed said: "Fatal crashes should NOT be up. We know we're putting safer cars on the roads every year; we know we're continuing to improve road engineering and we know we continue to improve at post crash care and rescue. In the past these factor drove down road risks very markedly, with deaths falling year after year."
"Our extensive research indicates one clear cause - drivers are getting worse under the influence of bad road safety policy."
"Modern road safety policy, particularly speed cameras, criminalises millions and increases road deaths. We need new policies based on skill and attitudes, and we needed them over a decade ago. Thousands have died needlessly because life-saving resources have been squandered."
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