The number of deaths on Oxfordshire's roads has rocketed by nearly a fifth so far this year. Statistics can lie even when it comes to even serious road injury figures, as county councillors were horrified to discover last week.

But fatalities are one set of data that we can at least be sure are unaffected by recent claims of police "administrative" problems" and the under-reporting of accidents.

So far this year 41 people have been killed on the county's roads, compared with 35 over the same period last year.

A large proportion of the carnage was seen on rural roads, with four deaths this year on the M40 and two on the A420, the so-called "Road to hell." The total number of fatal injuries for the whole of 1997 was 54.

But news of a 17 per cent rise in road deaths this year comes fast behind a depressing casualty report produced by Oxfordshire County Council.

The report showed that Oxfordshire's casualty figures were five per cent worse than the national average. The county failed to hit improvement targets in nearly all the key areas involving children, pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and passengers. But even before anyone could absorb the report, there were warnings that the figures are hopelessly flawed and only hinted at the real extent of accident injuries.

County council Labour group leader Brian Hodgson said that only a third of serious road injuries look to have been reported. Instead of 352, or one every day, the real Oxfordshire total could really stand at 972, representing three a day. Police "administrative difficulties" were blamed, with Ann Mortlock, the county road safety officer, believing that many accidents go unreported altogether. "It is clear that we have been working from inadequate data," she said.

David Young, director of Environmental Services, said: "Around one third of the injuries were as a direct result of drivers going too fast for the conditions or because they were breaking the speed limit."

Mr Young feared council budget cuts meant cyclists and motorcyclists were now "even more vulnerable to poor road and pavement surfaces".

With the council determined to impose a 30mph speed limit in all the county's villages, he said that enforcement remained a big problem - despite the fact that Thames Valley process the largest number of speeding offences outside London. The force prosecutes over 5,000 speeding drivers every month, with almost 50,000 motorists trapped by speed cameras alone last year.

The much-publicised crackdown Operation Pride swung into action this summer, though the short sharp campaign back-fired badly when the assistant chief constable Robert Davies was among its victims.

Now the county's new Speed Watch Campaign will aim to try to change attitudes. A recent survey, 70 per cent of drivers admitted speeding, and many that did compared drink driving to manslaughter but judged driving at 40mph in a 30mph zone only a little more serious than illegal parking. Report's findings The main findings of Oxfordshire's Casualty Report.

Serious injuries and slight injuries both rose by five per cent

The financial value to the community in Oxfordshire of stopping one week's toll of death, injury and property damage is well over £3m

Nearly half of the county's fatal accidents last year occurred in South Oxfordshire district

25 per cent of accidents involved car drivers aged from 17 to 24

About five per cent of injuries were as a result of drink driving

There was a significant rise in cyclists' injuries. They rose from 250 in 1996 to 300 last year.

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