These are the most dangerous kinds of roads in the UK

The higher the speed limit doesn't necessarily mean the higher the number of crashes.

By: Dominik Wilde

Apr 28, 2020 at 3:00am ET

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Speed may increase the risk of accidents, but new research has found that more accidents occur on 'slower' roads than on those with national speed limits, such as motorways and dual carriageways.

The findings from choosemycar.com revealed that 60 percent of accidents happened in the 21-30 mph range (73,408 accidents), with 567 of those being fatal – the statistics coming from the Department for Transport and covering 2018.

Roads with 51-60 mph speed limit registered the second-highest number of accidents, but the number was considerably lower than the top spot with 15,299 accidents. However, the number of fatal accidents was much closer to those on 21-30 mph roads, with 542 being fatal.

Third on the list was roads up to 20 mph, with 10,661 accidents – nine percent of the total number of accidents. That had just 49 fatal accidents, which was the lowest number of fatal accidents, despite its high-ranking place on the list.

Of the seven rankings on the list, motorways were just sixth on the list, ranking higher than only other roads with a 70 mph speed limit.

The Speed Limits Which Result in Most Accidents

Rank	Speed Limit	All Accidents	% of Total Accidents	Fatal Accidents	% of Fatal Accidents
1	21-30 mph	73.408	60%	567	34%
2	51-60 mph	15,299	12%	542	32%
3	1-20 mph	10,661	9%	49	3%
4	31-40 mph	10,147	8%	168	10%
5	41-50 mph	4,773	4%	134	8%
6	Motorway	4,566	4%	92	6%
7	61-70mph	3,781	3%	119	7%

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The research also revealed that London was the region that had the highest number of accidents overall, but the lowest number of fatal accidents while the East Midlands had the highest proportion of fatal accidents.

Most accidents were found to take place on urban roads, with most fatal ones occur on rural roads. Junctions were also found to be the most dangerous areas, accounting for almost a total of all accidents.