Killed and injured 'equal Woodstock' (From Witney Gazette)

Killed and injured 'equal Woodstock'

9:32am Saturday 9th February 2008 in Witney

OXFORDSHIRE'S road toll may have fallen by half last year, but the county's roads were not that much safer, it was revealed last week.

Road safety campaigners had welcomed the fall from 68 killed in traffic crashes, in 2006, to 34, last year, but the number of people who were seriously injured rose.

Taken together, there were 364 people killed or seriously injured, only a marginal drop from 372 in 2006.

This week, road safety experts renewed their appeals for motorists to drive more safely, because the difference between someone dying in a crash or suffering a serious injury was tiny.

Oxfordshire County Council said 2,605 people had been killed or suffered either serious or slight injury - the equivalent to the population of Woodstock being hurt on the road.

Assistant chief fire officer, Dave Etheridge, who has spearheaded a campaign to cut road and fire deaths by 365 over ten years, said: "The number of people killed or seriously injured has remained static, and it is something we are working hard to reduce. Our simple advice is to drive to the conditions of the road."

Geoff Barrell, road safety team leader at the county council, said: "The difference between a fatal and a serious injury is very small, and is just by the grace of God really.

"It is the same for serious injuries and slight injuries.

"It is just luck and chance sometimes that fewer people are killed."

Overall, there has been a decrease in deaths and serious injuries of almost five per cent over the past four years, while the total number of casualties, which includes slight injuries, fell by just two per cent over the same period, from 2,633 to 2,605.

Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for transport, Ian Hudspeth, who is a Woodstock councillor, said: "I'm pleased that there is a slow and steady decline in the number of people who are killed or injured on the county's roads.

"However, when you hear that the amount of people killed or injured last year was the equivalent of the population of Woodstock, you realise the extent of the problem."

Dawn Arnold, whose 19-year-old son Shane Vaughan was killed in a car crash on Christmas Day in 2006, said that more could be done on the county's roads to reduce fatalities.

Mrs Arnold, who was recently victorious in getting a reduction in the speed limit from 50mph to 40mph on the A4130 between Hadden Hill and Didcot, said: "It is good that the number of deaths has decreased, but even one is too many. I think fatalities signs for any areas that are dangerous will draw attention to the problems on that road.

"The new speed limit on the A4130 is good, but I would have liked a sign warning of the number of fatalities, because then it makes think 'gosh this is a dangerous piece of road, I need to be aware and drive carefully'."