UK Motorways Fail Safety Tests

A new report indicates that UK’s motorways are not meeting safety standards with almost half of the roads failing to meet top scores for safety. A-roads, according to the report, are even worse. The authors of the report are now urging government officials to address the issue immediately by designing safer roads.

The report also indicates that these accidents caused by dangerous road designs are costing the government billions of pounds per year. Essentially making the roads safer will cut down on the number of accidents which will in turn, help alleviate the large costs to the economy caused by so many accidents.

The Road Safety Foundation has revealed that only half of the UK’s roads meet enough safety standards to score four-stars on the ratings scale. John Dawson, the chairman for the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), who was in charge of the research, said that many of the accidents ending in fatalities occur on one or two star roads. He added that these roads needed to be improved upon urgently.

At the moment road accidents are costing the English economy upwards of £18 billion per year, but experts are now saying roads could be much safer than they are at the moment. The Foundation analyzed 95% of the motorways across the country and rated each one based on design.

Three star and two star motorways include the M4, M11, M25, A5, A49, and A52. It is now being recommended that more time and money be spent on these frequently used roads in order to increase motor safety on all of them and reduce the number of fatal accidents.