A NEW survey has revealed that roads in Carmarthenshire are among the most deadly in the UK .
Direct Line Car Insurance and Pacts (an All-Party Parliamentary Group), conducted the report and found that Carmarthen East and Dinefwr parliamentary constituency had one of the highest incident rates which killed or seriously injured (KSI) in Britain.
Carmarthenshire roads saw 11 fatalities on the roads over the last year – joint with Rhondda Cynon Taf – while 89 had serious injuries and 519 had minor injuries. This led to a top Dyfed-Powys Police officer describing it as distur bing.
The report’s authors said looking only at casualties who are killed or seriously injured showed a different pattern to that for all casualties.
Places with the highest KSI rates are usually very rural areas, due to high speed impacts as vehicles travel at faster speeds on roads with fewer safety measures.
Carmarthenshire had a KSI rate 56% higher than the national average. The most dangerous area was Banff and Buchan, in Aberdeenshire, which had a KSI rate of 111% about the national average.
Mike Holliday-Williams, managing director of personal lines at Direct Line, wanted change following this report and efforts must be made to ensure safer roads.
He said: “Good information is an essential basis for effective road safety action. Now, for the first time, MPs have specific road casualty information based on their constituency boundaries and its residents. We hope the Road Safety Dashboard (website) will provide a catalyst for action aimed at reducing deaths and injury at a local level, as the diversity of results demonstrate there is a no “one size fits all” solution. The dashboard will become a vital tool in helping improve the safety of Britain’s roads.”
At a previous meeting about road safety, Dyfed-Powys Police’s superintendent Ieuan Matthews said: “The number of collisions and fatal collisions seen so far this year is disturbing. Road safety and casualty reduction is a priority for our roads policing officers who see the consequences of road tragedies first hand all too often. Road safety is the responsibility of each and every road user whatever vehicle they drive.”
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