Serious road casualties fall in Bury

A fall in the number of people injured on Bury roads has been welcomed by safety officers at Bury Council.

Government figures for 2014 show that there were 0 fatalities, 31 serious injuries and 301 slight injuries. This is already below the target for 2020 (38 fatal and serious injuries) set at national level for the borough, and well below the average of 64 in the years 2005-09.

Bury was one of only seven authorities in the country to have no fatalities caused by crashes in 2014. Also, from July 2014 to June 2015, Bury was the only district in Greater Manchester to reach its 2020 target.

Jan Brabin, senior road safety officer for Bury Council, said: “Despite this good news, even one serious injury or fatality is one too many. We have been above the projected casualty reduction target for the previous five years, but we cannot become complacent. We have to keep pushing towards reducing occurrences of death and injury on our roads.”

The council’s road safety team will continue to deliver extensive road safety programmes in local primary and secondary Schools, and wider training and publicity to road users in Bury.

Bury Council implements engineering measures, traffic calming and traffic management schemes to make roads safer. A key part of this is the successful StreetSafe initiative which, among other things, has introduced a number of 20mph zones in residential areas to reduce the likelihood and severity of incidents.

For more information about road safety in Bury, go to http://www.bury.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=11272

ENDS

Press release issued: 3 November 2015.