Study of accidents in England and Wales shows e-scooter riders three times more likely to suffer traumatic brain injury than bikers

Electric scooter riders are three times more likely to suffer traumatic brain injuries than motorcyclists, according to an analysis of accidents in England and Wales – which found women were particularly at risk of serious harm.

Brain injuries accounted for more than a third of adult injuries on e-scooters, but riders also sustained more internal organ and blood vessel damage than did motorcyclists or pedal cyclists, the study found.

Wayve Uber wins first minicab licence for autonomous cabs from TfL but vehicles will have a safety driver (at first)

The taxi app company Uber and the autonomous technology developer Wayve have been granted the first minicab licences in London allowing them to offer self-driving taxi rides to paying customers – but with a human safety driver in place, for now.

The companies said they would start trips in the UK “later this summer” before the full public launch.

Larger vehicles crowd our roads and are far more dangerous to pedestrians. Let’s curb them before they do even more damage

We need an Ozempic for cars. They are growing at a phenomenal rate, wreaking havoc on the roads, squeezing out smaller vehicles in car parks and endangering pedestrians.

Like ever-hungry teenagers, cars in Europe are growing, on average, a centimetre wider every year, according to new research reported by the Guardian. And fewer than half of new cars in the UK can fit into a conventional parking space. As there is, remarkably, no width restriction for cars, no law can stop this growth until they reach the size of HGVs – that is, 2.55m wide – which are restricted.

Christian Wolmar is a transport commentator and author of The Liberation Line, the story of the railwaymen who rebuilt the railways in Europe after D-day

National Highways agency uses virtual reality test to see if drivers are distracted by introduction of low-flying drones

I’m barrelling down the motorway at 70mph, swerving from lane to lane, with cars speeding past me. There’s just one problem, I don’t have a driving licence.

Or at least it would be a problem were this a real road test. But despite the life-like surroundings, I am in fact trialling a complex simulation created by virtual reality company MXT on behalf of National Highways, the government-owned agency responsible for the UK’s major roads.

Exclusive: Research suggests financial penalties necessary if number of large vehicles on roads is to be reduced

Drivers who are told about the safety risks posed by SUVs to cyclists and pedestrians are very unlikely to be deterred from buying one, a new study has found.

The findings indicate that if governments want to reduce the number of large, dangerous vehicles on the roads, it is likely to require financial penalties, according to the psychologists at Swansea University who led the research.

The dire state of roads has provoked pothole vigilantes and become a political flashpoint from Manchester to Manhattan. How did we get here?

Sitting in St Albans crown court, waiting for his case to be called, Derek Bennett’s anger momentarily gave way to a sense of disbelief. “I mean, there’s rape and murder cases going on,” he says. “I couldn’t believe I was there, with this stupid subject.”

Initially, neither could the judge, whom Bennett says remarked that such issues were surely a matter for the magistrates. But Bennett, a 68-year-old construction consultant who has spent decades navigating building rules and regulations, had read the law carefully. Section 56 of the UK’s Highways Act 1980 clearly states the “highway authority or other person” responsible for a road in Britain is liable to maintain it, and should it fall into “disrepair”, a member of the public may apply for a crown court order to fix it. The other crimes would just have to wait. Bennett was here about potholes.

Truck was carrying Afghan families returning Pakistan when it overturned, official says

A truck overturned in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing 18 people on board including 10 children, a provincial official told Agence France-Presse.

Deadly traffic crashes are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving and a lack of regulation.

Ten people, all of whom were e-scooter riders, were killed in collisions compared with six in 2024

Nearly 500 people were seriously injured in collisions involving e-scooters in Great Britain last year, government statistics have shown.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said there had been an estimated 1,484 casualties in crashes involving electric scooters, compared with 1,390 in 2024.

Councils fix a pothole every 17 seconds – but getting on top of the repair backlog would cost £18.6bn. Why is it so hard to solve a problem that drives the nation crazy?

Marsh Street in the historic centre of Bristol is a modest little stretch of road with an office block at one end, a Thai restaurant at the other, and an almighty mess in between.

Along its length of 200 metres or so, the tarmac surface of the road is pockmarked with many dozens of cracks, patches, divots and holes. In some spots where the surface has worn away, three or more layers of road structure are exposed beneath. What is a bouncy enough ride in a bus or car is even more of an assault course for cyclists, a number of whom weave carefully down its length as they cut through the city centre.

Exclusive: Labour MP calls on DVLA to take action, saying speeding, hit and runs and other crimes are going unpunished

More than 18,000 vehicles are being used in the UK without proper records of where their owners live, it has emerged, part of what a Labour MP has called an increasing problem of “ghost owners” who cannot be held accountable for their driving.

According to a freedom of information request to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, 18,260 vehicles were listed in its records as being registered to the DVLA’s own address, meaning the owner’s location was not known.

I was only in my teens when, late at night, my Datsun ended up dangling off a median strip. Bracing to be harassed, I walked into a truck stop to ask for help …

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

My first car was a Datsun, in a delightful shade of baby-poo brown. I’d only been on my Ps a week when I almost drove it to total disaster.

It was 11pm one night in south-west Sydney when I approached the huge intersection that links the Hume Highway with Henry Lawson Drive. I was trying to turn right on to the highway and was the first car at the lights. With the baseless confidence of a 17-year-old, I turned … into the wrong lane.

Cities look to registration, regulation and infrastructure improvement to cut number of e-bike injuries and deaths

The increasing number of traumatic injuries from e-bikes in the United States has caught the attention of physicians, lawmakers, pedestrians and others.

While there is a shared concern about people recklessly riding the trendy machines, there are significant differences among roadway safety advocates about the best ways to prevent accidents – including whether the government should focus on improving infrastructure rather than regulating e-bikes.

UK researcher uses maths to explain seeming inevitability of phenomenon experienced by many motorists

It is a situation experienced by many motorists: one driver overtakes another only to find the slower car is right behind them when they reach a red light. Now a researcher has used mathematics to reveal why the situation feels inevitable.

Dr Conor Boland from Dublin City University has called his work “The Voorhees law of traffic”.

Driving fast is in ‘the German DNA’, say lovers of the speed-limit free Autobahn, but support in the country for a restriction is growing

Death-defying thrills are not what draws Lutz Leif Linden to zip down the Autobahn faster than a plane taking off. Instead, the feeling of freedom and an appreciation of technological mastery play a part in his “almost loving relationship” with driving cars faster than most people can imagine.

The top speed he has reached on the road in Germany, the world’s only democracy without a blanket speed limit on motorways, is 400km/h (249mph). “It’s like an airplane,” said Linden, the president of the Automobile Club of Germany (AvD). “You are faster than an Airbus at start.”

As watching videos, using touchscreens, and even livestreaming behind the wheel become more common, experts warn of increased risk of crashes

Jackie was on her way to a doctor’s appointment last fall when she realized her Uber driver’s eyes were not fully on the road. “He had a video playing on his phone and was intermittently looking at it,” she said. Jackie, who is 32 and lives in New Jersey, could not tell exactly what the driver was watching, but she remembers seeing shots of people talking – she guessed it was a video podcast. “I was definitely feeling a lot of dread and distress.”

As they continued on their 40-minute drive down the New Jersey Turnpike – a hectic highway that is not easy driving – Jackie considered saying something. But she felt vulnerable as a rider. “I was alone in a car with someone who was already doing something I found shocking and reckless,” she said. “I didn’t know how they were going to react.”

Huge vehicles are popular with drivers, but their wider impacts on road safety and the environment must be tackled

No one who walks, cycles or drives around London, or many of the world’s big cities, could fail to notice the vastly increased size of the typical car. A type of vehicle once associated with rural settings and outdoor lifestyles is now ubiquitous. Heavily marketed as sports utility vehicles (SUVs), supersize cars are among the key consumer trends of recent decades. In 2022, they accounted for 46% of global new car sales.

For manufacturers, these vehicles are big earners due to higher profit margins. For those inside them, they offer more space and a higher vantage point. But for those on the outside, SUVs have obvious downsides. The threat that they pose to pedestrians is one. Research shows that children are 77% more likely to die if struck by an SUV compared with other cars, due to their size and structure – particularly their raised bonnets. This finding was highlighted in an announcement from the London mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, that such risks are being scrutinised as part of a wider review into SUVs’ environmental impact. This evidence will provide the basis for policy proposals that are expected to include higher charges for owners.

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Mayor says he will encourage Met to scale down his official vehicle alongside plans for new charges for big cars

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said he would be encouraging the Met to abandon his armoured car in favour of a smaller vehicle as he signalled a clampdown on driving SUVs in London.

Khan and Transport for London are considering options including additional charges on outsize vehicles to tackle the increasing numbers of SUVs on London’s roads, primarily to address road safety but also to address concerns about parking and congestion.

TfL are also poised to increase 20mph zones and cut speed limits on the capital’s fastest roads later this year

Owners of SUVs could face charges to drive in London, after the mayor and transport authorities said they were reviewing the increased danger posed by larger, heavier cars.

Proposals to clamp down on the biggest vehicles could come later this year, with Transport for London (TfL) also poised to increase 20mph zones and cut the speed limits on its fastest roads from 50mph to 40mph to tackle road deaths.

I was in New Orleans for work, without travel insurance, when the car crashed into me. In the months I spent recovering, I began to think seriously about how I treated my health

The SUV slammed into me at a crosswalk, where I had right of way. It was 2024 and I was on the first night of a work trip to New Orleans. Time slowed down as I flew 2 metres through the air and crashed on to the road in what felt like slow motion. When I managed to stand up, there were waves of adrenaline juddering through me. My friend, Brandy, and a group of strangers helped me to the side of the road, and it was then that I remembered my annual travel insurance had expired the week before. In a prim, defensive tone, like a dowager who’d just had a fainting spell and resented all the fuss, I insisted that I was perfectly fine and didn’t need an ambulance. Then I blacked out.

The paramedics arrived and, despite my protests, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. On the stretcher, I started calculating how much money I had in my current account, how much I could put on a credit card and how much I could plausibly ask to borrow from my parents. My lack of insurance was entirely due to my own fecklessness, but being forced to run these sums with a head injury, after begging not to receive help that I obviously needed, was an almost comically bleak experience.