Department for Transport figures also show that the number of fatalities aged 60 and over in reported road crashes has increased by 9% from 588 in 2018 to 638 in 2019, and has been on an upward trajectory since 2015.
Commenting, Joshua Harris, director of campaigns for Brake said: “The decade-long stagnation in reducing road deaths on the roads is unacceptable. On average, five people are killed on our roads every day, every one a tragedy, and every one could have been prevented if the Government had the courage to make the big decisions to bring about change on our roads.
“We need 20mph default speed limits on towns and cities, zero tolerance limits for drink-driving and, most of all, a coherent and holistic approach to managing safety on our roads, with targets to eliminate death and serious injury for good. “The steady increase in deaths of older road users is hugely concerning and cannot simply be explained away by our ageing population. The frailty of older people make them highly vulnerable to death and serious injury in a crash, but this is not a new discovery, these vulnerabilities are obvious and known and yet we still await proper plans to protect the elderly from harm.
“No one would accept the level of death and serious injury we see on the roads in any other form of transport – in rail, aviation and maritime, dedicated agencies investigate crashes and come up with solutions to stop them happening again, why do we not have this for roads? Unless we take the safety of road users seriously, and treat road crime, such as speeding, like real crime, we will continue to see lives being ruined across the country, every day, by preventable road crashes.”
