Help for road accident victims

Practical help will be provided to victims and their families

Help is to be made available to road accident victims and their families in parts of West Yorkshire.

The Home Office is giving £155,000 for a pilot project in Calderdale and Bradford.

It is one of three schemes being set up to test different ways of supporting people who have been bereaved or seriously injured.

Home Office minister Baroness Scotland said the projects would examine how to give victims practical help, emotional support and better information.

More than 3,100 people in England and Wales died in road traffic accidents last year with 32,700 seriously injured.

The West Yorkshire project will initially help the bereaved, expanding to those who have suffered what the Home Office calls "life-changing" injuries.