The Essex Green Party has hit out at the amount of road deaths in the county in 2003, calling them "appalling and unacceptable."
The figures released last week showed 116 people were killed in road crashes, an increase of 24 from 2002 .
Cllr James Abbott, Essex Green Party co-ordinator, said: "This year on year death toll on the roads of Essex is simply appalling and unacceptable.
"But it is a consequence of a system that values speed and so called convenience above human life."
He said the Green Party had long been campaigning for a safer and more sustainable transport system, and despaired that official policies of the Government and Essex County Council were aimed at increasing traffic capacity and speeds, calling the system, "quite literally lethal."
"If a category of crime produced this level of death, injury and damage there would be a completely different reaction, but somehow, perversely, the attitude to death on the roads is different," he said.
Cllr Abbott said there needed to be a complete shift in culture, policies and practice to set safety and sustainability as the prime objectives in transport policies, and that the Green Party supported many measures that could achieve this.
Published Monday January 12, 2004
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