Road deaths fall

Mar 3 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE number of road deaths in West Yorkshire dropped by nearly a third last year.There were 71 fatalities in 2008 compared to 103 in 2007.

Serious injuries caused by crashes were down slightly from 1,029 to 1,014.

There were 9,411 casualties overall – a drop of more than 500.

Steve Thornton, chairman of the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, said: “The reductions are good news for the road users of West Yorkshire and are the most significant since the county was formed in 1974.”

Figures for Kirklees were unavailable at the time of writing, but Calderdale Council revealed casualties in Calderdale have also been slashed by nearly one third in the last six years.

Figures showed deaths and injuries have fallen from 1,112 in 2002 to 784 in 2008.

Members of Calderdale’s regeneration and development scrutiny panel will discuss road casualty trends from 2002 to 2007 at a meeting on Thursday.

They will also look at provisional figures for 2008.