Road users often have a choice of taking a major road route – a motorway or dual carriageway A road for instance – or a minor route to their destination, one that takes in B and C roads and, for those with knowledge of the region, which may mean time saving. The choice is one we all make as there are usually more than a couple of ways of getting from A to B, but the question is this: statistically, which are safer – major roads, or less populated minor road routes?

Logic says that the choice of a motorway – statistically the safest way to travel on UK roads – is the safest option, but not everybody has the option of using such on their daily commute or school run. This makes it important to consider the numbers of accidents on B and C roads in relation to those on major roads.

Staring with a basic figure that gives us a benchmark, the Office for National Statistics has compiled information relating to the average number of accidents on the roads each year. The total for Great Britain is around 220,000 per year, this being individual accidents and not casualties. Given that the figures show around 110,000 of those occur on designated major roads we are left with a very neat 50-50 split between the major routes and the minor.

What is particularly interesting, however, is that when we take the numbers of actual miles travelled on each type of route into account there is a notable distinction. It is estimated that road users travel 490billion kilometres each year on the UK’s roads. On minor and unclassified roads the total is 170billion vehicle kilometres. In simple terms, approximately one third of all distance travelled is done so on minor roads.

Yet, as we’ve seen above, half of all accidents occur on minor routes. The implication is quite clear – with one third of the distance travelled, and half of all accidents in that distance, there is much more likelihood of you having an accident on minor roads than there is on major roads.

So you now know major roads are safer, but are some times of the day safer than others as well? The Office for National Statistics provides some interesting information on the matter, with a table of average casualties per day for each of the day and night. The numbers used are for those accidents where an injury has occurred, and where the police have been informed or come to know of the accident. It is important to bear in mind that the definition of a road accident includes a vehicle that may not be moving, and also includes pedestrian casualties in road traffic accidents.

A quick glance at the figures shows that, percentage wise, fewer people are injured in road accidents between the hours of four and five o’clock in the morning. This is exactly what we would expect to see and, in fact, it is extremely rare for pedestrians to be involved in a road accident during this hour.

Author Bio: Hi, my name’s Dean Thornber and I write about whiplash claims and road accidents at www.WhiplashClaims.org a UK based website in the personal injury claims sector. I also write about personal injuries, sports injuries, accidents at work and asbestos related illnesses.

Category: Automotive
Keywords: personal injury, road accident, whiplash claims,