Drive to remove road dangers

Apr 19 2008 by Laura Wright, South Wales Echo

THE most dangerous roads in South Wales can be revealed today.

In just 13 months there were hundreds of accidents, 90 of them fatal or serious. The figures released to the Echo by South Wales Police under the Freedom of Information Act show the worst roads for accidents across the region between January 1, 2007, and January 31, 2008.

The A470 between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil was one of the worst stretches of road with 148 accidents where injury was caused.

Two of these crashes were fatal and another 11 were serious accidents, with the rest reporting slight injuries.

Another hotspot stretch of road runs through the centre of Cardiff. The A4161, which runs from Lansdowne Road in Canton, past the city centre Castle, through Newport Road and up to Southern Way, which connects the bottom of Rumney Hill to the Llanedeyrn Interchange, saw 88 accidents – one was fatal, 11 serious and another 76 caused slight injuries.

Meanwhile, the A48 which runs from Junction 29 of the M4 through to Ely saw 73 accidents, two of them fatal and five of them serious.

A total of 749 accidents with some degree of injury were reported to South Wales Police within the period.

Aside from the A470 the most accident prone road in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taff was the A4119, which links the motorway to Tonypandy, with 44 accidents.

The Vale of Glamorgan hotspot is the A4055, while in Bridgend it is the M4 with 32 accidents, followed by the A4061 which runs from the town through Blackmill and over the Bwlch Mountain with 31 accidents.

Paul Watters is head of public affairs at the AA, which is running a Make Roads Safer campaign.

He said: “Routinely A roads are the worst because they often have a 60mph limit and have a winding and undulating characteristic, so the risk is greater.

“We need to invest more money in doing improvement works. We have quite a lot of roads with old design standards which could do with upgrading. There are quite a few roads which pass through communities which could be bypassed and we still have junctions which need redesigning.

“Over the years design standards have changed and problems are often identified to fix them. Most highway authorities will have lots of schemes they want to do but they don’t often have enough money to do them all so they have to prioritise.

“A safe road system is one that has the best drivers on the best roads using the best cars and that is something we should strive towards.”

South Wales Police is working with partner agencies to reduce road deaths by 40% by 2010 and is on target to achieve this aim.

Inspector Wayne Tucker, head of serious collision investigation unit, said: “We are seeing less fatalities on the roads, but what we have seen is a rise in the amount of slight injury collisions.

“We’ve increased high-visibility policing and there’s a lot more thought going into road structure, but the one thing you can improve is the mind of individuals when they go to drive.

“One of the contributory factors is people driving too fast for the weather conditions. Cars need to be roadworthy and driven in the manner they should be driven. We are going into schools and colleges with the fire service and showing young people the possible consequences of their actions, show them photos of mock scenes involving dummies covered in fake blood and a lot of schools have been very receptive.”

Road deaths are down according to the Welsh Assembly Government.

A spokeswoman said: “We are committed to improving all areas of road safety in Wales. Casualty figures for 2006 show that we are now over three quarters of the way towards achieving the target of a 40% reduction (by 2010) in the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads. 

“We have already met the target of a 50% reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured. 

“Since 2000 we have allocated over £54m directly to local authorities to help them deliver and implement road safety projects and initiatives in their local areas. In addition, we have allocated over £27m to our popular Safe Routes to School initiative and this year £10m will be going to local authorities to help them implement projects that enhance safe routes in the community.”

laura.wright@mediawales.co.uk