Despite reputations, A34 and A339 are 'safe' roads

The Road Safety Foundation and the European Road Assesment Programme (EuroRAP), have compiled a map of Britain’s busiest roads and banded each road from one to five according to risk, with one being the lowest.
An average of 45,451 cars a day used the the 50.3km stretch of the A34 between the M3 and M4 between 2007 and 2011, with 44 people either killed or seriously injured.
During the same time period, the 53.9km stretch of the A34, which runs between the M4 and M40, had an average daily traffic flow of 60,016 vehicles and 73 people were either killed or seriously injured in that time.
Both these stetches were placed within band one.
Meanwhile, the 32.2km stretch of the A339 between Basingstoke and Newbury was placed in band two.
Figures show that an average of 22,931 vehicles a day used the road between 2007 and 2011, with 40 people killed or seriously injured during that time.
The most dangerous road in the district - placed in band 3 - was flagged as the 16.8km stretch of the A338 between Hungerford and Wantage, on which nine people were killed or seriously injured during the same time period. The average daily traffic flow was 3,172 cars.
The risk has been calculated by comparing the frequency of road crashes resulting in death and serious injury on every stretch of road with how much traffic each road is carrying.
The map shows the statistical risk of death or serious injury occuring on Britain’s motorways and A road network for 2007-2011 in the SE region.
According to the Road Safety Foundation, 1,754 people were killed on Britain’s roads in 2012.
A spokesman for the Road Safety Foundation said: “People may be surprised to see the likes of the A34 and A339 being considered safe, because they might regularly here of accidents on these roads and automatically think that means it is high risk.
“However, it is important to remember that the data considers the individual risks of a crash copared with the amount of traffic, which, in the case of the A34 and A339, is a lot.”
The report says that 62 per cent of fatal and serious crashes occur on single carriageway A roads, 12 per cent on dual carriageways, 15 per cent on mixed single/dual and 11 per cent on motorways
Risk to road users is now 7 times greater on single carriageway A roads than motorways, while travel on single carriageways is 3 times more risky than dual carriageways
However, there was a drop of 31 per cent in the number of people killed on British Roads in the five year survey period from 2007-2011 (11,457) compared with the previous five years (16,533)
In the last five years, Britain suffered serious injury costs of £1.9 billion on motorways, £8.4 billion on primary A roads and £5.9 billion on non-primary A roads.
The report analyses the 44,373km (11 per cent) of Britain’s network where 51 per cent of Britain’s road deaths take place: motorways and A roads outside major urban areas.