City road casualty toll plummets

The number of children killed or seriously injured on Manchester’s roads has almost halved since the year 2000, new figures reveal.

Statistics for 2007 show that there were 33 such cases last year, resulting in just one fatality. This compares with 60 recorded incidents of a child being killed or seriously injured in a collision in the year 2000.

The figures mean that Manchester has already almost reached its 2010 target of reducing the number of child casualties either killed or badly injured by 55 per cent compared with a 1994-98 'baseline' figure of 71.

Overall numbers of people being killed or seriously injured on the city's roads are also on a marked downward trend. The 2007 total of 207 such casualties represents a 29.6 per cent fall relative to the 1994-98 baseline figure of 294 with the most dramatic fall being in the last two years (284 to 207).

In the same period the number of pedestrian casualties, including more minor injuries, has fallen 42 per cent from a baseline figure of 749 to a 2007 total of 432 - well within the target of reducing pedestrian injuries 25 per cent by 2010. The number of cyclist casualties has gone down 24 per cent between 1994-98 and 2007 from 288 to 218.

Councillor Neil Swannick, Executive Member for Planning and Environment, said: "These figures make extremely encouraging reading. While even one casualty is one too many, and there is certainly no room for complacency, the downward trend in serious accidents shows that the hard work we are doing to make the roads safer is having significant success."

The reduced casualty rates, especially among children, reflect the City Council's decision to prioritise safety improvements at locations where the most serious casualties occured rather than to those where the most collisions took place.

The figures are also evidence that an emphasis on safety measures in and around schools is also bearing fruit.

These include the creation of 20mph limit zones around many schools, the City Council's Safer Routes To Schools scheme, which aims to improve pedestrian safety, and a wide range of pedestrian training and road safety education schemes.

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Roger Williams, tel: 0161 234 3275