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A290 between Canterbury and Whitstable in Road Safety Foundation list of most dangerous routes

06:00, 04 July 2019

updated: 09:58, 04 July 2019

A notorious road running between Canterbury and Whitstable has been listed as one of the most dangerous in the country.

The A290 has been named in the top 10 of persistently higher risk routes in Britain by the Road Safety Foundation and features in a new interactive map of crash hot spots.

Previously dubbed a “race track”, the eight-mile stretch has been the scene of two fatalities and a number of other serious accidents in the past six years.

Scroll down to hear from Brian Lawton from the Road Safety Foundation

An abandoned crashed car in November 2016 (13367022)
An abandoned crashed car in November 2016 (13367022)

It is set to receive £1.5m from the Department for Transport over the next two years for a raft of safety measures.

In October 2015, 17-year-old passenger Danny Lee was killed in a crash on the A290 at Pean Hill.

Two years earlier, Laurie Hazrati, 22, died in hospital 10 days after his Renault Clio crashed near Blean.

The Road Safety Foundation has identified 75 persistently higher risk routes that are not yet earmarked for funding.

The charity says they accounted for 4,400 fatal and serious crashes between 2012 and 2017.

Acting executive director of the Road Safety Foundation, Kate Fuller, said: “Our main road networks need to be safe.

“So much of our travel is on these intensely used networks that any flaw in their in-built safety means tragedy sooner rather than later.

“For England to achieve similar results, the newly defined major road network – with more than four times as much risk as Highways England’s network – needs disciplined safety goals.

“The government must also release new funding from the successful Safer Road Fund to address the 75 persistently higher risk roads.”

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