The United Kingdom might now have the safest roads in the European Union but the number of people dying or being injured on our roads is still too high.
One of the reasons our roads are amongst the safest in Europe is that back in 2000 the Government set challenging targets for reducing the number of accidents where people where killed or seriously injured.
It also changed some of the core functions of the Fire and Rescue Service through the Fire and Rescue Services Act in 2004. It meant that for the first time the Act officially recognised our role in rescuing people from road traffic collisions, and gives the Fire Brigade the remit to work with other agencies to prevent road traffic collisions.
Here is Cleveland for the last two years we've had some of the lowest road traffic fatalities by county in England and Wales. That is despite having one of the highest volumes of road tanker movements in the UK at around 11,000 tanker movements a day.
Its because over the last few years working with the Police, Local Authorities and other road traffic agencies, we've cut our road traffic fatalities from an average of around 31 per year to around 18 per year.
We have developed and presented a muti-agency road traffic initiative called Learn and Live aimed at young drivers between the ages of 17 and 25, who are responsible for the highest volume or road traffic collisions.
Find out more about Learn and Live here.
