For most car buyers, it was the chance to save £2,000 on a new motor, but for a few, the car scrappage scheme, which ended last year, could have saved their life.
The number of car occupants killed on Britain’s roads fell 20% last year, below 1,000 to 842.
Figures released by the Department for Transport (DfT) also reveal a dramatic 16% drop in the number of overall road users killed in crashes, bringing the total down to the lowest level since records began in 1926.
Industry experts say the decrease in fatal accidents is the result of ever-improving vehicle safety, which means drivers are far more likely to survive a crash, and that the scrappage scheme, which helped drivers swap old bangers for brand new, safer cars, may have boosted the figures.
The year-long scheme, which ended last year, provided a £2,000 discount on a new car if buyers scrapped a vehicle that was at least 10 years old. More than 380,000 people took advantage, trading in cars a generation behind current safety standards.
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Many of the scrapped cars will have been the last to be built before independent Euro NCAP safety tests transformed the industry by publishing the results for any buyer to see.
“Before the tests, cars had to survive a low-speed impact straight on into a concrete block to pass crash regulations,” said Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA.
“The Euro NCAP tests were introduced in 1997, and cars were crashed into a deformable block, which identified where they were weak. More tests, including a side-impact pole, have been introduced since then.
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“Now we are getting the full benefit because we’ve got to the stage where even the cheapest second-hand cars have been built to pass the NCAP tests.”
The DfT’s figures, taken from police accident reports, show that the number of people killed in road accidents fell from 2,222 in 2009 to 1,857 last year, the fewest since records began. There was also a 2% drop in the number of cars on the road.
Most other road casualty figures dropped as well. The total number of deaths or injuries involving road users was down to 208,655, a 6% improvement.
“This is a dramatic reduction,” said Richard Cuerden, technical director for vehicle safety at the Transport Research Laboratory.
“Car safety has improved so much that if you are involved in an accident, your car is going to protect you far more than it did 10 or 20 years ago.”
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Most modern cars now come with a host of safety features that were fitted to only top-of-the-range models a decade ago. These include sophisticated systems such as brake assist, which can sense if you are trying to make an emergency stop by stamping on the brake — if you don’t stamp hard enough, the car will apply the full brake force electronically. Ten years ago, that was only on luxury cars. Now it is standard on a Ford Focus. However, they also include more basic systems such front and rear crumple zones, side airbags and better visibility.
Car makers are on course to improve safety even further, with Volvo aiming to build an uncrashable car by 2020. But experts warn that this may not mean roads become totally safe.
“Car safety improvements may not mean that there are fewer accidents, but that people will crash at lower speeds and be better protected inside their car,” said Cuerden. “One hypothesis is that car design is helping to prevent the deaths of more drivers, but that they are being left with serious injuries instead.”
And while the news is good for drivers, the figures revealed that cyclist deaths have increased — up 7% from 104 to 111. The number of injured cyclists has also increased.