'Half of drivers' risking head-on crashes

Date: 1/2/2011

Overtaking on a single carriageway rural road at "lethal speeds" is putting around half of UK drivers at risk of being involved in a head-on collision with another motorist, it has been warned.

According to research by Brake and Direct Line, 47 per cent of respondents to a recent poll admitted to travelling at a speed of more than 60 mph while attempting to overtake on country roads on at least one occasion in the last year.

Of these, 23 per cent revealed they take this action once a month, while one in eight motorists stated they have made the decision to overtake when they were unable to see what was approaching them.

While the two companies claim that this may be down to a belief that driving on rural roads is safer than on urban routes, in actuality drivers are more likely to lose their lives while on a countryside road than any other type.

In 2009, 749 deaths were noted in the UK that had occurred on a single carriageway road where the speed limit was 60 mph.

This was the equivalent of one-third of all road deaths.

Brake runs the campaign Target Zero - its aim is to bring the number of fatalities recorded on UK roads each year down to zero.

Posted by Sarah Bailey