Councillor slams council over road casualty numbers

9.18.00pm GMT Sun 9th Nov 2008

Barnet had the highest number of road deaths in London last year, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats. According to a study published by Transport for London, 14 people lost their lives as a result of accidents - more than in any other London borough.

Total numbers of road casualties were also discovered to be the second-highest in London. In 2007, 1,392 people were killed or suffered serious or slight injuries, second only to the 1,698 people hurt on Westminster's roads.

Jack Cohen, Barnet's Liberal Democrat leader, called for Barnet Council urgently to look into why the figures were so high, and questioned the authority's long-running policy of removing road humps. He said: "These figures make grim reading, and the council must investigate why this is the case. The council will say that it's down to the number of major roads we have, but other boroughs have major routes running through them too.

"I'm really not sure that the policy of removing road humps is a good one. When you remove them in one place you might find you don't have any more accidents in that street but you get drivers in to the mindset that they can drive faster."