Shock new figures show 70% more deaths on rural roads
Tue, 10 Dec 2024
Analysis of new Department for Transport figures shows there are 70% more deaths on rural roads than urban highways.
Rural insurance expert NFU Mutual has crunched the numbers, which reveal collisions on rural roads are around four times more likely to result in a fatality.
That’s an average of one death in every 32 collisions, compared to 1 in every 122 on urban roads.
Rural road fatalities for people traveling in cars and vans totalled 559 in 2023, compared to 147 urban fatalities.
NFU Mutual says the figures reflect a persistent trend of disproportionate danger on rural roads and the tragic and avoidable loss of hundreds of lives each year in the UK’s countryside.
"Rural roads are the arteries of our countryside, vital to the rural economy and serving to connect us to all the benefits of the great outdoors," says NFU Mutual chief executive Nick Turner.
"Every road user has a responsibility to protect themselves and others, but the disparity in safety between urban and rural roads, and the higher risk shouldered by vulnerable road users, suggests that more can be done."
This is despite the Highway Code being amended in January 2022 to include a ‘hierarchy of road users’. A survey this summer suggested more than 4 in 10 drivers are still unaware of it.
To help tackle the heightened risks on rural roads, the insurer has teamed up with farming unions, ROSPA and other partners to create a Code for Countryside Roads.
It provides a clear guide on how people should use rural roads, says NFU Mutual.
The 28-page Code, which is free to download, is based on feedback from over 700 members of the public and aims to highlight the unique hazards on rural roads that are not experienced in urban areas.
These include higher speed limits, high-speed corners and junctions, blind corners, junctions or field entrances, poor road condition, mud on the road and vulnerable road users such as walkers or horse riders.
They require a specific set of skills and awareness that the new guide aims to highlight.
"We hope it will steer a course to safer rural roads for all," says Turner.
