The government is undertaking a radical review of the finance and ownership of our major roads. Shortly some of the fuel and road tax that drivers pay may well go directly to new organisations responsible for managing roads.

The arrangements for monitoring safety will be key to whether public support for reform is won or lost. This report details the safety levels, stretch by stretch, being achieved on 45,000kms of motorway and A roads - the network on which half of Britain's road deaths are concentrated.

Unlike other infrastructure projects, engineering safe junctions, safe roadsides and safe villages is popular and benefits the whole country. Engineering safe roads is an immediate, flexible and ceratin way to boost GDP.

The government has an opportunity to make engineering a safer future the centrpiece of the finance and ownership reforms it has in mind. The latest British EuroRAP Results for 2012 maps the way.

Today government announced the first road casualty increase since 2003 despite a levelling off in vehicle traffic levels.

Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain: 2011 shows that the annual number of people killed in road accidents increased by 3% from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011 - the first increase since 2003. The number killed or seriously injured rose by 2% from 25,023 to 24,510, the first annual increase since 1994.

In the last decade, the reduction in road deaths has largely come from improved 'passive' safety in new vehicles, such as lairbags and crumple zones feeding through the vehicle fleet.

England's motorways do not currently provide enough protection to car drivers and occupants to consider raising the speed limit, according to a new report from the Road Safety Foundation. Instead focus should be on the large economic benefits arising from fixing the network systematically

In new research it showswidespread faults in run-off protection doubling the rate of death and serious injury and shunt crashes rising exponentially with traffic flow.  

More than 300 people in the UK are alive today or have avoided the prospect of a lifetime of special care because just 15 roads have had simple improvements put in place, according to this year's tracking survey by the Road Safety Foundation. On these 15 roads alone, fatal and serious crashes dropped 62% from 494 to 190.

Simple Measures Save Lives shows that elementary safety measures are paying back the costs of investment in an average of 10 weeks. The savings are worth over £50 million annually to emergency services, the NHS, local authority care, businesses and families.

Six thousand lives could be saved on Britain's roads over the next ten years if just a fraction of the money currently spent on road maintenance was provided for infrastructure improvements.

Britain loses up to £30 billion (2.3% GDP) annually in the cost of road crashes, most of which falls on busy, targetable motorways and main roads according to Saving Lives, Saving Money: the costs and benefits of achieving safe roads, a report for the RAC Foundation by the Road Safety Foundation.