Most dangerous roads in Britian

[Funky]

Half of all fatal road crashes occur on one-tenth of Britain's roads, according to charity the Road Safety Foundation.

Its report, covering 28,000 miles of A-roads and motorways, says Scotland has the highest risk highways, followed by parts of northern England.

It identified the A537 between Macclesfield, Cheshire, and Buxton, Derbyshire, as the most dangerous road.

The charity wants government spending to be targeted at improving safety on the most dangerous roads.

Its report, entitled Saving Lives for Less, suggests the high cost of emergency services and hospitals could be avoided by spending small sums in accident blackspots.

The foundation is the British arm of the European Road Assessment Programme, the sister organisation of EuroNCAP which measures car safety.

Junction danger

It examined accident data relating to roads across Britain. Among its conclusions were:

•A third of all fatal and serious crashes happen at junctions
•Single roads carry six times the risk of motorways and twice that of dual carriageways
•One-in-four fatal or serious crash on A-roads or motorways involves a motorcyclist
•There was a 5% reduction in the number of fatal crashes on such roads in the last three years
•West Midlands is the safest region
The most improved road was named as the A40 between Llandovery and Carmarthen.

Improved junctions and markings, along with resurfacing with high friction, anti-skid treatments, saw the number of serious accidents fell from 27 between 2003 and 2005 to seven in the following three years.

Foundation director Dr Joanne Hill said such simple, well-planned engineering measures were relatively inexpensive.

MOST DANGEROUS ROADS
Continue reading the main story
A537 Macclesfield to Buxton - Cheshire/Derbyshire
A5012 Pikehall to Matlock - Derbyshire
A621 Baslow to Totley - Derbyshire/South Yorkshire
A625 Calver to Sheffield - South Yorkshire
A54 Congleton to Buxton - Derbyshire
A581 Rufford to Chorley - Lancashire
A5004 Whaley Bridge to Buxton - Derbyshire
A675 Blackburn to Preston - Lancashire
A61 Barnsley to Wakefield - South/West Yorkshire
A285 Chichester to Petworth - West Sussex
Source: Road Safety Foundation

"Not only can Britain reduce road deaths and serious injuries but, by targeting a relatively small mileage of high-risk roads, we can do so with good economic returns.

"Too often we pay for emergency services, hospitals and care for the disabled rather than taking easy steps to put road design faults right."

The report said the A537 through the Peak District, known as the Cat and Fiddle, had severe bends, steep falls from the carriageway and was edged by dry-stone walls or rock face for almost all its length.

Fatal and serious collisions on the route - popular with tourists, goods vehicles and motorcyclists - rose from 15 in the three years to 2005 to 34 between 2006 and 2008.

Most crashes happened at weekends during the summer in dry, daylight conditions.

The report also names the highest-risk roads when crashes involving motorcyclists are excluded, with a stretch of the A18 in North East Lincolnshire topping the list.

Most of these roads are single-carriageway A roads, with nine of the 10 in northern England

My conclucsion is 'People ooop North can't ride our kid'

[Smiler]

My conclucsion is 'People ooop North can't ride our kid'

um, actually....

I'm sure it was the A54 from Congleton to Buxton that I did on a really murky foggy day, and I was down to 20mph for much of it (the road twists and turns, is narrow and has almost unrelentless hills and drops) and I can see why there would be so many accidents on it. Just for the record, I was in the car not on the bike - on a bike it would be serious arse twitching riding that road!!!

My conclusion is 'People oooop North fall off cos their roads are scary!'

[monkey8414]

i rode the A54 from Congleton to Buxton earlier this year and o thought it was a great road

[Smiler]

Ha ha, yeah when the weather aint cr@p I'm sure its great!!!

Even so, its not difficult to see how so many get it all very very wrong and end up in the scenery
Still, given its locality to the Cat, it'll prob have speed bumps all along it soon...

[Chris K5]

You got to much time on your hands mate.

[Smiler]

eh??

[Funky]

I've done a few of the roads when I lived ooop north. True many of them are great, especially around the peak district but can get a bit busy...

[thelastsuperpower]

My conclucsion is 'People ooop North can't ride our kid'

...and people daarn saarf can't spell

[ghosthunter]

ello ive been on the cat n fiddle! in derby but in the car!!! and even then it was scary!!! but looks like a real good road!!

[Funky]

I prefer the ride to the cat and fiddle rather than actually being on it.