Britain’s most dangerous road revealed as A285 between Chichester and Petworth

The 12-mile stretch has seen the number of fatal and serious crashes rise by 16 per cent

The A285 between Chichester and Petworth (GOOGLE)

The UK’s most persistently dangerous road has been identified as the A285 between Chichester and Petworth.

The route, which runs north to south linking the A27 with the A272, has come top of the list of the UK’s “persistently higher risk roads,” which have shown no sign of improvement despite the efforts of local councils, according to the Road Safety Foundation.

Running through the South Downs, the 19 kilometre stretch has seen a 16 per cent increase in the number of fatal and serious crashes between 2007 and 2012, with the majority of crashes involving runoffs and motorcycles.

The route itself has seen a number of low-cost safety measures implemented over time but because of the significant number of bends in the route, it requires more far reaching intervention, the foundation said.

The A809 in Glasgow; the A937 in Laurencekirk; the A18 between Laceby and Loughborough and the A6 in Lancaster were in the report’s top five persistently higher risk roads. The most common crash types were identified as run-offs.

Overall the risks on Britain’s ‘A’ roads and motorways has reduced by 12 per cent in the last six years according to foundation’s report, called ‘How safe are you on Britain’s roads?’.

A total of £14 billion is lost annually in road crashes on Britain’s roads based on the number of reports made to the police, and 14 per cent of the UK’s road network surveyed was labelled as “unacceptably high risk”.

The report found 15 stretches of road where authorities had taken relatively-low cost action that has led to an 80 per cent reduction in fatal and serious crashes. The most improved road was the A404 in Amersham, followed by the A6068 running from the M68; the A4174 at Keynsham; the A602 at Hitchin and the A6189 at Castleton.