Road traffic accidents drop by over a third

Published: 12/12/2013

The number of road traffic accidents has decreased by 36 per cent, according to latest figures from the Department for Transport.

In 2001 there were 229,000 reported accidents on UK roads; last year this number had dropped to 146,000. The AA believes this significant decline is due to improvements in visibility for drivers, road surfaces and car safety technology including electronic stability control (ESC) and lane keeping support.

Electronic stability control (ESC) helps a driver remain in control of their vehicle when on bends while lane keeping support alerts a driver if they are drifting over white lines and into adjacent lanes. Studies suggest ESC technology reduces the risk of an accident by a quarter (25%).

Chris Patience, Head of Technical Policy for the AA comments:

“ESC is one of those technologies that showed so much potential it was rolled up in European legislation, and I think it is the case that it is required on all new cars from 2014.”

Content correct at time of publication