When assessing car insurance premiums, one of the key factors taken into account by insurers is where the policyholder lives: and specifically the rate of crime and the rate of accidents in that area. Now,
Ageas has sponsored a Road Safety Foundation report examining road deaths in Britain.
According to its analysis of the complete network of roads in Britain’s non-metropolitan authorities, the number of people being killed on Britain’s roads has fallen – with 1,732 people killed in 2015 compared to 1,775 in 2014.
However, one region has few reasons to celebrate – with the South East now officially the area in which people are most at risk of death and injury. There were 29 fatal and serious injury crashes per billion vehicle km travelled in the South East – that compares to just 16 in the West Midlands. The ‘highest risk’ road is the 19km stretch of the A285 between Chichester to Petworth in West Sussex; while the A227 between Tonbridge and the A25 near Borough Green in Kent was named as this year’s most improved road.
Hampshire, meanwhile, suffered more than £642 million in economic losses on its roads from crashes resulting in death and serious injury alone.
“Every day we see the devastating impact that road crashes have on our customers and their families, who we believe should not have to tolerate high risk roads on the national network,” commented Andy Watson, chief executive of Ageas UK. “Since the start of our sponsorship, we’ve witnessed first-hand the impact that the proven actions from the report have on preventing death and trauma on our roads. The human and financial benefits of making safety the top priority couldn’t be clearer.”
Focusing on the financial benefits, below is an image highlighting the cost of road crashes for urban authorities from 2012-2014.
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