"Show patience" - how to reduce rural road deaths in East Yorkshire
Although urban roads are more accident-prone, rural roads see the most deaths.
Exercising patience could help drive down the number of deaths on East Yorkshire's country roads, according to rural insurer NFU Mutual. 15 people died on rural roads in the region last year, while no urban road deaths were recorded.
NFU will release a Code for Countryside Roads to drive down the numbers of rural road deaths. There were over twice as many accidents on Great Britain's urban roads (71,151) as on rural roads (31,395) in 2022, the country roads saw 1017 deaths compared to 593 on urban roads.
NFU Mutual Rural Roads Specialist Andrew Chalk said: "What we want is people to show respect and to show patience, so if you see a cyclist don't rush them and don't rush to overtake and maybe put yourself in danger by going on the other side of the road. You're not going to get to your destination any slower if you show patience but you might just save your life."
Between 2018 and 2022, 66 people died on rural roads in East Yorkshire, compared to 8 on urban roads. Although urban roads are often busier, cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders have much less protection from accidents on rural roads.
Andrew Chalk said: "There's blind corners, field entrances, the roads are generally in a less good condition and narrower as well, and you have to navigate vulnerable road users like cyclists, motorcyclists, agricultural vehicles and also pedestrians sometimes.
"With the speeds, and the lack of traffic compared to urban roads, people are a lot more likely to operate on autopilot and unfortunately that's when accidents happen."