Measuring to Manage identifies northwest England’s A537, which runs between Macclesfield and Buxton, as the UK’s most dangerous road. The seven-mile stretch of tarmac winds its way through the Peak District National Park. Bounded by dry stone walls or bare rock faces for the most part, its sharp bends, uphill climbs and steep falls from the carriageway make it nine times more risky than the average ‘A’ road, the report says.

“Because there is less traffic, some drivers feel a false sense of security on rural roads,” says Sarah Martin from road safety charity Brake, which works together with Allianz in the United Kingdom. “Crash statistics show that, per mile travelled, rural roads such as the A537 are the most dangerous places for all kinds of road users, and the majority of vehicle occupant deaths happen on these roads.”

http://www.roadsafetyfoundation.org/media/30065/measuring_to_manage.pdf

Interesting that, despite all the hysteria regarding the A9, it doesn’t feature in this report.

I seem to recall quite a few Peak District roads keep making the “most dangerous roads” list.

My colleagues like to remind me to be careful as I cover that area for work. And Stoke. Roads are safer there, if not as pretty.

Bounded by dry stone walls or bare rock faces for the most part, its sharp bends, uphill climbs and steep falls from the carriageway

Those are all more serious in a car than on a bike though, can’t see those features would massively increase risk as a cyclist.

Interesting that, despite all the hysteria regarding the A9, it doesn’t feature in this report.

The A9 is actually pretty safe. There are regular accidents on it but it is a very busy road (so the accident rate per km traveled is actually quite low)

The dangerous bits of the A9 are all north of Inverness

I thought that the hysteria regarding the A9 ,was about motorised traffic ?
When cycling ,most of the A9 can be avoided by using the old roads and paths at the side.

The report is about ALL accidents and (as richmtb says) show up all the hysteria as just that.

A9 as above must have orders of magnitude more traffic. So not like with like. Not too many really local traffic (tractors &c) unlike the A96 or similar.

A9 is also quite a long road (rarely go on the bits N of Inverness or S of Perth) which I guess flattens out the numbers.

however…
On my big cycle 10 days ago, bypassing A9 by Pitlochry, air ambulance in attendance at the Killiecrankie section, serious injuries that one I think.

Last week, needed to get down to Glasgow and back. On way down, couple of cars barrel past me around Aviemore, oncoming traffic, nothing unusual, lo and behold there’s another one, which then tries to occupy same space as car behind me, v near to an accident that one, he then overtakes me round about Alvie, again in face of oncoming traffic.

By House of Bruar, Luton type van in ditch, road closed.

On way back, just short of Dalnacardoch / Dalmein, big black Merc rocket ship, barrels past me and maybe 3/4 cars, then makes plume of smoke emergency stop and then goes up the NCR alongside the A9 at warp speed, presumably to ‘get past’ the remaining traffic, eye watering stuff…

A537 is dangerous because it’s a very heavily used road as it’s one of the major arteries across the Peak District. Mixing everything from arctics to bicycles and a mix of locals (who know the road) and tourists (who don’t) on “interesting” terrain is a recipe for disaster. Some of it is wide and open with flowing bends; some of the bends look flowing then tighten mid corner which catches people out.

They installed front and rear facing average speed cameras on it a couple of years ago as motorcyclists used to use it as a racetrack. Within minutes they’d all found the various cut-throughs and blind bits so it became a bit of a game between the authorities and the motorcyclists who now resort to short bits of blatting it then stopping in a layby for 10 minutes…

Great biking road, the descent into Buxton from the Cat & Fiddle is lovely. Dry road, following wind and you can easily keep 50mph right down to the final couple of sharp bends