The Department for Transport has revealed that the government's long-running Think! road safety campaign greatly exaggerated the chance of a pedestrian dying when being hit by a car at certain speeds.
The campaign suggested that a car travelling at 30mph had a 20 per cent chance of killing any pedestrian it hit, while at 40mph the probability of death rose to 80 per cent.
But these figures are based on data from the 1970s - since when both car safety design and emergency medical have improved markedly - and latest research now puts the chance of pedestrian death at 31 per cent at 40 mph and just 7 per cent at 30 mph.
Mike Penning, the road safety minister, said: "Road safety is a priority for the Government, but misleading statistics only serve to undermine our case, not help it".
What's most interesting is that the newer figures actually mean it is proportionately even more dangerous to pedestrians for cars to travel at 40mph in urban areas. The old figures meant you were four times more likely to be killed if hit by a car at 40mph than 30mph - the latest figures make death 4.5 times more likely if hit at 40mph, even though the probability of death or serious injury is severely reduced in both cases.
The Government criticised Labour for not releasing the updated information sooner, but accepted that the previous administration had originally used the figures in good faith.
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