Lawford Kidd's Blog

The latest Department for Transport road casualty statistics have shown a welcome decrease in the overall number of deaths and serious injuries in the year ending September 2013.

However, despite the decrease, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is concerned that two-wheeled road users are still a growing risk and must be given even greater priority for investment and education.

The figures show that:

Brake, the road safety charity, is calling on Scotland's drivers to commit to staying stone cold sober if driving home from Christmas festivities, to avoid causing devastating casualties.

The call comes as Police Scotland's annual drink and drug driving enforcement campaign kicks off. The month long campaign sees forces across Scotland stepping up checks to catch drink and drug drivers putting lives in danger.

In 2011 (most recent figures available), drivers over the drink drive limit were responsible for 680 road casualties in Scotland; 90 people sustained serious injuries and 20 were killed. While casualties have dropped by 43% since 2001, Brake argues more must be done to reduce these entirely preventable deaths and serious injuries to zero.

Friday is the most dangerous day of the week for road accidents that result in personal injury claims and November has the highest award frequency, according to an analysis of 2012 motor liability awards released by the Irish Injuries Board.

The Injuries Board delivered compensation of €157.2m for motor liability awards in 2012 which represents a 2.2% increase on the €153.7m awarded in 2011. The volume of awards for motor accidents last year increased by 1.3% to 7,622, compared to 7,521 the previous year.

Motor liability awards account for three in four of all personal injury awards processed by the Injuries Board.

The number of cyclists killed on Britain’s roads increased by ten percent in 2012, according to the latest figures from the Department for Transport. The increase has led the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) to call for action to tackle the problem.

The annual road casualty figures for Great Britain in 2012 show that overall road deaths fell by eight percent to 1,754 in 2012, but deaths among cyclists rose by ten percent to 118. There was also an increase in the number of seriously injured cyclists (3,222).

The increase in deaths was mainly among the young with the number of child cyclists killed doubling from six in 2011 to thirteen in 2012, although the number of seriously injured fell by a fifth.

Motorists who drive too close to the car in front are the target of a new campaign to reduce the number of whiplash injuries.

“Tailgating can result in crashes and injuries which could otherwise have been avoided. All it achieves is suffering for the driver in front and probably a higher insurance premium for the offender,” explained Deborah Evans, chief executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). “We’re simply asking for motorists to back off.”

The national not-for-profit safety campaign group has produced a short animated video for social media about the consequences of tailgating, titled ‘A Lesson in Social Graces’.