Drivers 'unprotected' on motorways

27 January 2010

Half of England's motorways do not protect drivers who run off the road, according to a safety report.

Almost all 4,350 miles of motorways and major A roads in England were inspected by the Road Safety Foundation, which said railways or airport runways would not be allowed to operate with similar structural defects.

The group, which is the UK arm of the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), awarded each road a star rating similar to that used to judge car safety by sister organisation EuroNCAP.

Just 50% of motorways got the top rating of four stars, as many scored highly on head-on collision protection and junction safety but offered little help to run-off drivers.

Dual carriageways also lacked run-off protection, and three quarters of them received a three star rating, but the final 25% has minor accesses, lay-bys and junctions which were considered unsuitable for a major road.

Most single carriageway A roads got just two stars, as they had few safety features to protect drivers from on-coming traffic even if rural speed limits were obeyed .

The Road Safety Foundation said road crashes cost the economy £18 billion every year.

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