More cash needed to cut road deaths

Thursday, June 08, 2006

UK needs to increase spend by £800K
Global road deaths reach 1.2 million each year
Pledge your support on new website

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The UK needs to spend four times as much as it does now to help cut back on road deaths around the world.

A new report from the Commission for Global Road Safety says the UK's yearly spend should increase by £800,000 - about as much as the Treasury collects in fuel tax every half hour.

The Commission says a 10-year £162 million plan to improve road safety needs the support of the UK and other leading G8 economies.

The Make Roads Safe report shows that 1.2 million people are killed in road accidents every year. Five hundred children are killed every day, or one every three minutes, while the overall fatality count stands at 3000 a day. That compares with the UK's yearly death toll of around 3500, or 10 a day.

The RAC Foundation and the FIA Foundation, which runs the Euro NCAP crash testing programme, are launching a new campaign on the back of the report to highlight the extend of road fatalities. A website has been launched where you can pledge your support at www.makeroadssafe.org.