The A254 in Thanet has been named as one of the UK’s most dangerous roads - as its revealed the county is among the worst for serious and fatal crashes.

The stretch from the A28 in Margate to the junction of the A255 near Ramsgate had 15 serious crashes - 40% involving pedestrians and cyclists - within just three years, a report from the charity Road Safety Foundation reveals.

That’s almost double the number between 2010 and 2012, which saw a total of eight fatal or serious crashes.

Of the 15 smashes between 2013 and 2015, 47% were at a junction. None of them were head-on but 7% were rear-end shunts.

The road’s EuroRAP risk rating, which is based on the number of fatal and serious crashes per billion km travelled, has been raised to "high". It was rated "medium-high" between 2010 and 12.

Paul Watters from the Road Safety Foundation said Kent is one of the worst counties in the UK for serious accidents.

He said: "Overall in Kent we've seen an increase of about 18% in terms of serious and fatal crashes and that puts Kent well down the bottom of the league of 78 counties. Kent is actually 73rd out of the 78 - not a good picture at all I am afraid.

"We know overall the south east of England is seeing, on our risk register, a higher amount of risk now.

"There are many more fatal and serious casualties in the south east, so I suppose you could say Kent is following that trend.

"It is possibly to do with traffic levels and also a very dense road network.

"We look at route lengths and compare to traffic flow to come up with a risk rating that the average driver would face.

"The A254 is the highest risk road in the south east, it is quite a short length and quite a bit of it is through a semi-urban area but it has particular problems with motorcyclists.

"It has a very high risk rate, partly due to the nature of the road itself."

In July 2014, a motorcyclist had to be flown to hospital in London after being badly injured on the road.

More recently, the busy road had to be closed following a crash between an ambulance and a car.

The ambulance was taking a patient to hospital when it hit with the car at around 7am on Tuesday, September 12.