'You're more likely to crash in district'

From the archive, first published Monday 4th Dec 2006.

Motorists in Bradford are at a higher risk of being involved in an accident than anywhere else in the country, a survey claimed today.

And the research by an insurance company also named the district as the country's second worst for car thefts after Hull.

The Endsleigh report says Bradford's car accident rate is 36 per cent above the national average.

Ilford in east London is the next worst followed by a list of inner London areas.

Experts, who are backing the Telegraph & Argus Be Safe Not Sorry road safety campaign, pointed to the fact that the number of crashes and car crime had in fact reduced in Bradford over the last five years.

Philip Gwynne, of the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, said the insurance company's statistics highlighted the work that still needed to be done to make the roads safer. Mr Gwynne said: "In a way it's justifying the hard work that's being done not just by the Casualty Reduction Partnership but by all the bodies that are trying to keep injury off the roads.

"It does also underline the scale of the test that we face, the scale of the challenge that we face on a daily basis.

"It is not just professionals, but everyone of us who uses the roads.

"If everybody just made that extra commitment to respect the speed limit, to respect other road users, to give each other room, not to use mobiles while driving and the other small things that we were taught to do when we were learning to drive, if everybody was committed to that we would all be a lot safer.

"It's worth emphasising that in face of this charge the roads in Bradford are safer than they have ever been.

"Over the last two to three years there has been a significant reduction in the number of crashes, the number of collisions and the number of incidents on our roads."

Inspector Paul Hepworth, of the Bradford North Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: "The police and Bradford Council have done a lot of good work and they have driven accidents down in Bradford."

Insp Hepworth also stressed that reported car crime was also being reduced.

"It's getting better and better in Bradford along with West Yorkshire," he said.

Endsleigh's Motor Cities report 2006 examined hundreds of thousands of policies, and compared the frequency of claims in different locations to a national average calculated from the data overall.

The company said the results of the analysis enabled it to show the risk of an incident occurring rather than just being a log of the number of incidents that have already occurred.

Its spokesman Tim Larden said: "Congestion charging, drink-driving campaigns and speed cameras, as well as a whole host of other traffic-calming and speed-cutting measures, should play a part in bringing accident numbers down."

e-mail: rebecca.wright@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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