TWELVE people were killed and 82 seriously injured on Herefordshire’s roads last year, an increase on the previous year.

In 2017, police recorded 11 deaths and 80 people seriously injured.

Absent-minded drivers were the most common cause of road accidents in Herefordshire, figures from the Department for Transport show.

A charity that was set up in memory of Emma Louise Young, who tragically lost her life in a road traffic accident when she was just 23, has said “We’ve got to stop this carnage”.

Angela Tyler, who set up the ELY Memorial Fund, said: “The older generation feel they can carry on speeding and using their phone behind the wheel.

“I’m seriously worried about the older generation aren’t taking heed in the amount of crashes.

“When these accidents happen, your life changes like a grenade going off. When Emma died, I can’t explain it. When I see these accidents I think of the nightmare these families are going to go through.”

The Hereford Times Slow Down and Stay Safe campaign is urging drivers to curb their speeds, particularly in the run-up to the return of the dark nights at the end of October. We launched the campaign after a dreadful spate of accidents on Herefordshire's roads.

The 2018 DfT statistics show drivers or riders failing to look properly contributed to 117 accidents in the county in 2018.

The figures, which report contributory factors for accidents as recorded by police, also show that 86 accidents were caused by loss of control.

The DfT cautions against comparing trends from previous years, however, because of changes to the way some forces record the severity of road injuries.

Samuel Nahk, senior public affairs officer at Brake (a road safety campaign charity), said: “These figures clearly highlight that driver error is one of the main causes of crashes on our roads, all too often leading to death and serious injury.

“Yet every death and injury on our roads is a needless, preventable tragedy.

“We can mitigate the impact of driver error through a safe systems approach with safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds and safer road use, enabling people to move around in safe and healthy ways.

A DfT spokeswoman said: “We are committed to ensuring our roads are safe for everyone and our comprehensive Road Safety Action Plan sets out more than 70 different measures to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our roads.