ROAD deaths have risen to the highest level since Labour came to power, prompting calls for an urgent review of the Government’s road safety strategy.

Last year the number of deaths exceeded 3,500 for the first time since 1997. The figures came a week after ministers attempted to justify concentrating resources on speed cameras by claiming they were saving 100 lives a year. Motorcyclists accounted for most of the increase in deaths last year but there was also a rise in the number of car occupants killed.

Road safety groups accused the Government of failing to implement a series of promised reforms which would deter drink-driving and increase penalties for careless motoring.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) yesterday published a six-point action plan which included a lower drink limit and random breath-testing.

Two years ago the Government abandoned plans to cut the alcohol limit to the level used in most other European countries. In the following year the number of people killed or injured in crashes involving a driver over the alcohol limit rose from 18,800 to more than 20,000, the highest level since 1990.

Despite the increase police carried out 9 per cent fewer breath tests than the previous year.

The number of traffic police has fallen by 11 per cent since 1996 because chief constables have diverted officers to other duties, such as street crime. The Government pledged in 1998 to change the law to make it easier to prosecute drink-drivers. At present police must follow up a roadside breath test with two further tests at a station. This can take an hour or more of officers’ time.

Ministers have repeatedly promised legislation that would make a roadside test sufficient evidence to secure a prosecution. They have also proposed to change the offence of careless driving to distinguish between motorists who momentarily lose concentration and those who deliberately drive badly.

Yesterday, a Department for Transport (DfT) spokesman was unable to say when the changes would be introduced. “All we can say at present is that we propose to introduce these measures at the earliest suitable legislative opportunity,” he said.

Rob Gifford, the director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: “The Government has been dragging its feet on these changes, which would send a clear message to road users and help to save lives on our roads.”

Mr Gifford said the rise in road deaths was surprising because there had been significant improvements in car safety technology since the mid-1990s, with multiple air bags and anti-lock braking now fitted as standard. “These measures have increased people’s chances of surviving a crash but they could also be lulling drivers into a false sense of security,” he said. The RAC Foundation said the Government’s focus on speed cameras, which caught about two million drivers last year, meant other offences were being neglected. “In order to further reduce casualties the Government must concentrate more on effective and visible enforcement and education,” it said.

In the decade before speed cameras were introduced, from 1984 to 1993, road deaths fell by 32 per cent. In the decade since, deaths have dropped by only 3.8 per cent.

A study published last week by the DfT claimed that speed cameras had cut deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent on the roads they covered. But several leading academics, including John Adams, Professor of Geography at University College London, have questioned the validity of those measurements.

They argue that the policy of locating cameras on roads with a recent history of crashes has distorted the figures. The overall casualty rate was bound to improve because the starting point used by the study was abnormally high.

The decline in casualties could have nothing to do with the camera, and instead be the result of the road returning to normal after a blip in the crash rate.

The Government does not have a specific target for reducing road deaths. It aims instead to reduce deaths and serious injuries, which fell last year by 6 per cent.

RoSPA said the 14 per cent increase in motorcycle deaths was partly attributable to the phenomenon of “born-again bikers”, men in their 30s and 40s who ride motorcycles as a hobby at weekends.

RoSPA called for new rules requiring motorcyclists to build up experience on smaller machines before progressing to bigger bikes.

Mr Gifford said: “Improving motorcyclists’ skills merely means they kill themselves in a more skilled way.”

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