The UK road safety chief has called for action after more than 500k road closures in 2014 which cost them more than one billion pounds.
The report shows that wild animals, unsupervised and unattended children, wandering pedestrians and road accidents were some of the most common reasons that caused motorway or A-Lane closures in 2014. Highway authorities in England have figured out almost 44 different reasons with the help of Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM).
The most common cause was broken down vehicles accounting for almost half of the 450,000 lane closures. Pedestrians were the second most dominating reason and caused a shutdown of a live lane. However, on 122 occasions unsupervised children caused closure of live-lane.
Animals also cause live-lane closure. Loose animals on the motorways, live-lanes, A-Lane roads and carriage ways caused a shutdown: 4,000 times. A further 567 drivers caused the traffic to stop because they were driving on the wrong side of the road. In 586 very special cases, drivers attempted suicide.
Chief executive officer of the IAM, Sarah Sillars said that it was just unacceptable that 5,700 closures were caused by potholes in the roads and they require a massive investment to repair them across the UK.
She added, “This is not something England can be proud of.” However she suggested, “An education and awareness campaign starting at school age is badly needed.”
The closures and delays in the traffic, cost the UK economy an estimated one billion pounds in 2014.
