Road safety: joined up thinking can save messed up lives

Simple improvements to road lay-outs have been shown to improve road safety enormously, and one of the most improved roads in the UK is in Wales. Elisabeth Roth and Liz Phipps of Cardiff-based NewLaw are lawyers who have to deal with the harrowing business of finding help and negotiating restitution for those who have been seriously injured in road accidents. They have begun a campaign for joined up thinking in road safety and already have political support. Here, they explain how that simple act of joined-up thinking in government could save lives and also save money too.

According to the Road Safety Foundation, the A40 road between Llandovery and Carmarthen is the most improved in the whole UK. During 2006 to 2008, simple road improvements led to a reduction of 20 serious and fatal collisions, a fall of 74%.

Before that, in the three years 2003 to 2005, there were 27 fatal and serious collisions. But from 2006 to 2008, that figure was reduced to seven. As lawyers based in Cardiff, who spend all our working days trying to put right as best we can the catastrophic injuries suffered by the unwary and innocent road user, we came to know this road only too well.

Let’s stay on the A40 for a moment. The 25 May 2007 was an ordinary day on that same road, close to Ammanford. It was one o’clock, lunchtime, when a retired ambulance driver was riding his motorcycle towards Llandeilo. He had no reason to take particular note of the car travelling in the opposite direction, until it turned right suddenly across his path. He was rushed to hospital, his life in the balance. Fortunately he recovered, though he suffered life-threatening septicaemia and blood clots and now has one leg shorter than the other. He still lives in danger of deep vein thrombosis.

One day on the A40 in 2006, close to Haverfordwest, a young man of 25 pulls out to overtake. But the road has three lanes, and the middle lane is for overtaking in both directions. There is the brow of a hill just ahead...

In the other direction an 18 year old driver has also pulled out to overtake a lorry. There is a head-on collision. The 18 year old dies. The other driver has severe injuries to his brain, from which he will never recover.

That accident couldn’t happen now, because the road markings have been changed. A simple enough procedure, yet it could have saved these two lives.

Three lives which will never be the same again. One was lost and the other two were only saved by hours of urgent and expert and very expensive care by doctors and nursing staff. Three lives from among dozens over the past few years which have been lost or ruined on this one road alone. Yet what would it cost to eradicate those dangers? How has the A40 been so improved since then?

According to the annual road tracking survey by the Road Safety Foundation, in some instances it’s taken little more than the cost of a pot of paint. On the A40, junctions have been upgraded, new road markings introduced and the road resurfaced. All of this work costs, of course, and we can only be well aware of the stringent budget cuts expected on every aspect of government expenditure – certainly including the Department of Transport.

Yet consider what those lives cost. The government has tried to evaluate the cost to society of road accidents, taking into account all relevant factors, financial and human. According to their statistics, the average cost of a road accident, in terms of lost output, medical treatment and the human costs involved is £52,850. Though that is only an average of all road users, and figures vary dramatically according to the role the victim was playing.

Naturally enough, the more secure your means of conveyance, the less likely you are to suffer serious injury and so the costs of treating you are lower.

So bus and coach occupants are the most secure in the event of an accident. The average cost of treating each passenger in the event of a road accident is £27,750. Car drivers are more at risk and so are more likely to suffer serious injury, so the cost of treating each driver is an average of £40,980.

More at risk, predictably, are pedal cyclists (£53, 630) and pedestrians (£84,690). But most of all at risk are motorcyclists, who comprise many of the clients whose legal cases we manage. The added exposure to danger means the average cost of treating a biker is a staggering £100,050.

Clearly there is no point in trying to evaluate the monstrous and agonizing cost of the human tragedy involved. But on these figures, the cost of treating these victims was well over £300,000. Yet two of them could have been saved simply by painting a solid white line instead of dotted.

According to the Audit Commission, well over 3,000 people die across the UK each year in road accidents; 240,000 are injured, 25,000 of them seriously. It costs the NHS £470 million a year to treat the casualties, damage to property is £500 million and the total value of lost output to the economy is £2.2 billion.

Do we really have joined up government? If the Transport Department can save a few thousand pounds by not upgrading a dangerous road junction, that will probably look good in its accounts. The Chancellor will be pleased. But how does that stack up against the hideous injuries and the enormous additional cost to the NHS? On the Treasury’s own financial terms it’s actually much cheaper to invest in a bit of paint and some kerb stones, which will save lives, than be stingy with road improvements and have to pick up the enormous bills for treating the seriously injured.

Let’s consider the 20 collisions avoided over two years on the A40 alone. Shall we call that figure £900,000 saved? Then consider that the 74% improvement in road accidents on the A40 isn’t in any way unusual. According to the Road Safety Foundation, the top 10 improved roads in the UK have saved an average of 70% of previous fatal and serious collisions.

We really have to become much more sophisticated in the way we make decisions on public policy, especially those involving spending money. In this case, the catastrophic injury and loss of life so needlessly incurred on our roads should itself be enough to change the way we make decisions. But if it’s not, then proof that it can save money as well means there is no excuse for not doing the obvious.

08/02/2011