Q&A: The myth of rail safety

A report by risk assessors working out how much rail companies should spend on improving safety found the public is largely convinced that trains today are more dangerous than they have ever been.

Statistics show that is untrue, so why do we persist in believing that with every train ride we are dicing with death?

How safe are trains today compared with 70 years ago?

Fatal accidents have been reduced every decade for the past 70 years. There were 8.8 fatal crashes a year in 1940s and one a year in 2000s.

The UK's worst rail crash was back in 1915, when a wooden troop train and a passenger train collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green, killing more than 200 people.

Since then the number of casualties in crashes has consistently been falling.

The 1950s saw two of the UK's worst incidents. In 1952, 112 people were killed and 340 hurt when two express trains collided at Harrow and Wealdstone, in north west London, and a third train ran into the wreckage.

Then in 1957, a train ran through a red signal in the fog and collided with another train at Lewisham, south London, killing 90 people and injuring 173.

Fewer passengers have died since privatisation in 1993 (97 dead) than in the same period before privatisation (127 dead).

So why do people believe rail travel is more dangerous now?

In the 1980s there was a succession of serious crashes which put rail safety in the spotlight.

The worst was on 12 December 1988, when 35 people died in a rush-hour collision at Clapham Junction in south London.

At the time the inquiry into the crash recommended that £750m be spent installing an automatic train protection (ATP) across the whole rail network, but it was ruled out by British Rail and the government as too pricey in the run up to privatisation.

Crashes in the later 1990s and 2000s (1997 Southall; 1999 Ladbroke Grove; 2000 Hatfield; 2002 Potters Bar) have helped to keep the fear of rail travel fresh in passengers' minds.

In addition, the report to the Rail Safety and Standards Board found that since privatisation, people do not believe the industry as a whole is competently run.

What's the safest way to travel?

By far it is by air and that is followed in close second by rail.

You are much more likely to be killed walking or going by car.

According to Department of Transport statistics, the most dangerous mode of transport is motorbike.

And you are three times more likely to die in a car crash than on a train.

Shouldn't we be putting more money into improving road safety then?

Road safety is improving. You are half as likely to be killed in a car today than you were 30 years ago.

The risk assessment team worked out it costs taxpayers £10m to save each life with the new train warning system TPWS, but £100,000 to save a life with safety measures on the roads.

One of the report's conclusions was that choosing to make road safety more of a focus than rail is a decision Britain should be making as a society.