Britain's Accident Hotspots Revealed

As Britain is accused of failing to reduce road deaths despite being the speed camera capital of Europe, leading traffic information service, Keepmoving.co.uk, has conducted a comprehensive survey to find Britain’s accident hotspots.

The results suggest that speed cameras are not being deployed where they are most needed, as the highest volume of accidents occurs on busy stretches of road where speed cameras are not present.

In 2007, Keepmoving.co.uk has monitored motorways and A roads and found that, during the year so far, almost 19,177 accidents have occurred on the 450 principal routes. This is an average of 43 incidents per road with a high of 707 and a low of 2.

The nation’s principal motorways, the M1, M4, M5, M6 and M25 suffered 2,900 incidents whilst the A1 and A38 combined registered 1,063. The highest cumulative figure was registered for the M4, with 707 accidents. The next highest figure was for an A road: The A38, which runs from Cornwall to the Midlands, registered 621 incidents.

The most accident prone stretches of road are in the South of England, with the A40 Eastbound from Westway to White City in London topping the list with 27 reported accidents so far this year. Close behind is the M25 Junction 29-28 anticlockwise from Upminster to Brentford, with 26 incidents, a total shared by the M40 Junction 9-10 Northbound, from Bicester South to Bicester North. The M25 has another entry, with Junction 31-30 anticlockwise between Purfleet and Thurrock registering 25 incidents. This total is shared by the M11 Junction 10-9 Southbound, between Duxford and Saffron Walden.

Alex Petrie, Product Director of Keepmoving.co.uk, says:

“Road safety statistics identify points where injuries or fatalities have occurred and clearly speed cameras have an extremely valuable role in reducing these statistics.”

 “Our research shows that the stretches of road with the highest frequency of incidents are generally motorway stretches with high volumes of users. In all but a few cases, speed cameras are not present on these stretches.”

A recent report by the European Road Safety Council shows Britain has 54 road deaths per million of population. This figure is higher than the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland whilst during the period 2001-2005 France reduced its road deaths by 35 per
cent, Holland and Norway by 25 per cent and Britain by only 7 per cent

Keepmoving.co.uk provides traffic information on-line and via the mobile phone short-dial 64644. Eyewitness traffic and accident reports are also available through 64644 (calls cost 60p per minute).