The first three months of Thames Valley police's Safer Roads campaign has seen a 4.8 per cent cut in road accident casualties.

This is being hailed as an early victory for the two-year campaign, which has also seen a 28 per cent drop in speed-related collisions.

The scheme was launched in April this year to cut the number of casualties on roads in the Thames Valley.

The campaign works by increasing speed enforcement and educating drivers about the dangers of driving at inappropriate speeds.

The statistics, which cover accidents in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, are compared to the same period in 1999.

But officers have warned there are still at least three people killed in road accidents in the area each week and they will not be letting up the pressure.

Insp Malcolm Collis said:"We are still in the very early stages of the project and casualty statistics are constantly changing. We need to monitor them over a much longer period of time to be sure that the message is getting through."