A64 near York ‘most dangerous' (From York Press)

A64 near York ‘most dangerous'

9:14am Saturday 23rd June 2007 in News By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter

THE A64 near York has been branded the most dangerous road in the north in a new survey.

The survey, conducted by the traffic information service Keepmoving.co.uk, claims that a stretch of the busy route near Grimston Bar has already experienced 12 incidents so far this year - more than any other road in the region.

But Keepmoving claimed that several other stretches of roads in York and North Yorkshire are also in the North's top ten for worst roads.

It says the A19 near Fulford and the A59 between Harrogate and Skipton are in joint fourth place with eight incidents each, with the A19 between Thirsk and York and the A59 between Green Hammerton and Poppleton in joint eighth place with seven incidents each.

Keepmoving said it had monitored statistics for motorways and A-roads to come up with the league table and found that, during the year so far, 1,406 accidents have occurred on 67 principal roads in the North.

The organisation claimed the results suggested that speed cameras were not being deployed where they were most needed, as the highest volume of accidents had occurred on busy stretches of road where speed cameras are not present.

Product director Alex Petrie said: "Road safety statistics identify points where injuries or fatalities have occurred and clearly speed cameras have an extremely valuable role in reducing these statistics.

"Our research shows that the stretches of road with the highest frequency of incidents are generally motorway stretches with high volumes of users. In all but a few cases, speed cameras are not present on these stretches."

Keepmoving said a recent report by the European Road Safety Council had shown Britain had 54 road deaths per million of population."This figure is higher than the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland whilst during the period 2001-2005 France reduced its road deaths by 35 per cent, Holland and Norway by 25 per cent and Britain by only seven per cent."