Calls are being made for better investigation into road accident causes rather than just looking at who is to blame for causing them.

The call for better investigations into road accidents has been made by Professor Stephen Glaister of the RAC Foundation, to coincide with the launch of a publication named 'Transport Safety: Is The Law An Ass?' by Dr Chris Elliot.

Professor Stephen Glaister said: “Historically road accidents are analysed by individual police forces with the emphasis placed on finding out if anyone has broken the law. Identifying the underlying causes of crashes seems to be of secondary importance.”

“We’ve been locking up drivers for a century and yet motorists still die in their thousands on the roads each year. The focus on solely penalising individuals rather than also identifying systemic safety failings is a serious flaw in current transport policy. Road safety should be driven by prevention as well as punishment.”

“If a lorry smashes into a queue of stationary traffic killing several people attention is concentrated on why the driver failed to spot the obstacle ahead. Whilst this is important, perhaps the bigger questions are; why was the traffic at a standstill in the first place, and how can vehicles be kept moving in the future to avoid repetitions?”

It is believed that if a similar organisation to the HSE at work was set up for policing motoring accidents, many lives and serious injuries could be prevented by dealing with the cause rather than who to blame.