Key points from the review include:

·     The number of people killed and seriously injured in road crashes in the UK has declined by 17% since the 1994-1998 baseline, broadly in line with the Government target.

·      Despite the overall drop in casualties, serious casualties related to drink driving have risen by five percent.  Drink-drive related casualties now account for 7% of all road casualties and 15% of deaths.  A number of actions proposed by the Government to combat drink driving have been dropped or not proceeded with, including lowering the drink drive limit, allowing evidential roadside breath testing and enabling targeted breath testing.

·      Serious casualties among motorcyclists have risen by 16% since 1994-1998.  Motorcyclists now account for 19% of those killed and seriously injured on the roads. 

·    Casualties among children have been reduced the fastest - by 33% since 1994-1998.  However, child pedestrians in the UK are still among the most at risk in Europe, and are several times more likely to be killed as a pedestrian than in leading countries such as Denmark .

PACTS Executive Director Robert Gifford said:

Considerable progress has been made towards the targets for 2010 as a result of efforts by all road safety stakeholders.

However, there continue to be nearly 40,000 people killed or injured on our roads each year.  These casualties are preventable.  Despite this, many road safety measures have come under attack in some sections of the press.

A sustained commitment by Government is necessary not only to achieve the targets but also to maintain the reduction in casualties achieved so far.