Top accident blackspots in Manchester, Sheffield and Wakefield

It’s Road Safety Week, and as part of the campaign, we’re encouraging you all to look out for each other on the roads this week and throughout the year. As part of our efforts to raise awareness of the importance of treating other road users with care and consideration, we’ve done some research into accident blackspots in Manchester, Sheffield and Wakefield, and we’ve outlined our findings below. Many of us might think we’re already pretty familiar with the main accidents blackspots in our local area. But the reality could actually be very different… By carefully analysing data on the Department for Transport’s English Road Safety Comparison website, we’ve identified the main accident blackspots in the centres of Manchester, Sheffield and Wakefield, as well as some of the broader accident trends within each area. Some of the results may surprise you. Here’s how to read the icons on the maps for each area:

Top Accident Blackspots in Manchester City Centre

The main accident blackspots within the Manchester Ring Road are listed below:

Manchester Area

Number of reported fatal or serious collisions between 2005-2013

Piccadilly Gardens area

16

Junction of Princess Street and Portland Street

11

Junction of Chepstow Street and Oxford Street

8

Junction of Whitworth Street and Princess Street

6

Junction of Deansgate and St Mary’s Gate

6

The Piccadilly Gardens area - a public transport hub bustling with cars, buses and trams - came out on top.

During our analysis, we also found that there have been three fatalities in traffic accidents involving cars, three involving trams, and one involving a bus or coach in Manchester city centre since 2005. Over the last eight years, the most accident-prone age group when it comes to the travelling around the city centre has remained the 26-35 bracket. And in 2013, more than twice as many males as females were injured on Manchester city centre roads. On a positive note, however, the number of fatal and serious injuries caused by traffic accidents in Manchester has dropped significantly over the eight-year period we reviewed, with fatal injuries dropping by more than 80%, and serious injuries by over 40%.

Top Accident Blackspots in Sheffield City Centre

The main accident blackspots within the Sheffield Inner Ring Road are as follows:

Sheffield Area

Number of reported fatal or serious collisions between 2005-2013

Junction of Fitzalan Square and High Street

13

Sidney Street/Brown Street

10

Broad Lane

10

Charter Square area

9

Haymarket/Waitgate

8

As you can see, the busy junction of Fitzalan Square and High Street (where the city’s trams run as well as standard vehicle traffic) is the city’s worst accident blackspot.

Although it only comes in third in our overall accident countdown, Broad Lane was one of only two roads in Sheffield city centre to suffer two fatal accidents over the last eight years, the other road being Angel Street. In 2013, the 16-20 age group were the most prominent in the road traffic accident casualty figures for Sheffield, and a total of 311 people in this age category were fatally or seriously injured between 2005 and 2013. And, as in Manchester, there were over twice as many male casualties as women (117 males compared to 52 females). Serious and fatal accidents fell from 305 in 2005 to 169 in 2013 - a drop of 45%.

Top Accident Blackspots in Wakefield City Centre

The five major accident blackspots in Wakefield city centre (which for the purposes of this research has been defined as the area west and north of the River Calder, south of the A650 and east of Alverthorpe) are:

Wakefield Area

Number of reported fatal or serious collisions between 2005-2013

Ings Road

13

Westgate

7

Bullring area

6

Junction of Barnsley Road and Doncaster Road

5

Junction of Horbury Road and Grange Street

4

There have been 10 fatal or serious collisions on Wakefield’s Ings Road in the last eight years, thanks in no small part to the busy roundabout that connects it to Denby Dale Road – in fact, five of the 13 major accidents recorded on this road took place on or near to this roundabout.

21-25-year-olds made up the largest age group of road accident casualties in Wakefield in 2013, with 25 people in this age bracket reported as seriously or fatally injured. For a mid-sized city, Wakefield has an unusually high traffic accident fatality rate, with seven recorded deaths taking place in the city centre over the eight-year period we investigated. However, the number of fatal accidents in the Wakefield locality as a whole has reduced by just over half, from 21 in 2005 to 10 in 2013.

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Look Out For Each Other this Road Safety Week

The UK has one of the best road safety records in the world. In 2013, road deaths were down to 1,712 - this is the lowest figure since national records began in 1926. The total number of casualties also dropped 6% year-on-year, with child casualties down 9%. Whilst these major improvements in road safety are great news, we all have a responsibility as road users to help make our roads even safer. You can tweet your support for the campaign using #RoadSafetyWeek, and you can donate to Brake – the road safety charity – here.