In the 20th century, safety engineering reacted to local clusters of road crashes after they had happened. Sites with clear clusters of crashes and safety engineering flaws (‘blackspots’ or ‘hotspots’) were treated. However, over time, distinguishing statistically meaningful clusters from those arising largely by chance became increasingly difficult.

The new approach introduced with the Safer Roads Fund is ‘proactive’. Known high risks are identified through research. Roads are inspected along their length so that risks can be systematically identified and then removed, often before people are killed or hurt. The portfolio of 50 roads posing the highest risks to their users across England have already been inspected, remedial proposals have been prepared and the first findings will be reported in 2018.

This report shows serious road crashes, and their costs, can be targeted. Much of the loss of Britain’s GDP from road crashes is concentrated: half of all Britain’s road deaths occur on just the 10% of the road network mapped in this report.