Road accidents claimed 2,538 lives during 2008 in Great Britain with almost another 250,000 injured in some capacity.

Over the last 10 years there have been 32,298 fatalities as a result on road accidents making them the single biggest cause of accidental death in the 5 to 35 age group.

Though the number of deaths is still high, it is well within the government targets set in 2000 to be reached by 2010, which were for a 40% reduction in the number of deaths or serious injuries caused by road accidents, a 50% reduction in deaths or serious injuries in children and 10% fewer people suffering slight injury for every 100m vehicle kilometres travelled.

There are three main factors attributed to the fall in road fatalities, which are better designed cars, better engineered roads and better behaviour by drivers, mainly driving slower.

The government was due to release its new 10-year strategy this month, but has delayed doing so until a new drink driving law proposal report is prepared.

It is the ambition to make Britain’s roads the safest in the world, encouraging new technologies, such as Intelligent Speed Adaptation that will regulate a vehicles speed, and any other technology, especially that will help protect the vulnerable road users making cycling accidents and pedestrian accidents less likely to happen.

Based on Department for Transport (DfT) data on road accidents where at least one person was killed, the BBC has created an accident hotspot map showing where these accidents occurred, and also graphical accident data which can be broken down various different ways by selecting different options.

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