Independent road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has called for the promotion of best practice in driving for work to help reduce the number of deaths and injuries on Great Britain’s roads.

The call – together with a request for more incentives for post-test training and enforcement of new motoring laws – is in response to the latest road safety statistics published by the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT). The figures, revealed in Reported road casualties Great Britain 2017, show that while the number of casualties of all severities is the lowest level on record, the number of fatalities has increased.

“We appear to have reached a hard core of human behaviour related crashes that requires much more focus on driver training and quality if we are to make progress towards a long term vision of zero deaths on our roads,” said Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research at IAM RoadSmart. “Road safety in the UK seems to be bumping along the floor with yet another year without real improvement in key fatal injury statistics.

“With seven years without progress it is clear that we have an increasingly complex picture of good news, such as safer cars and investment in new roads, being cancelled out by more traffic and a hard core of human behaviour issues that are the most difficult to tackle.”

“Road safety is everyone’s responsibility and it is clear that working in partnership to promote it is the key to returning to long term downward trends. More incentives for post-test training, consistent enforcement of new motoring laws, accelerating the uptake of AEB (autonomous emergency braking) equipped cars and promoting best practice in driving for work are just a few examples of the quick gains that could be achieved.”