The roof of the minibus was sheared off in the crash

However, despite the deaths of 12 people in those incidents, the UK can still claim to have the safest roads in Europe.

Five people died in an 11-vehicle pile-up on the M1 on 11 June, while on Thursday a further seven were killed in a minibus crash near Manchester airport.

But as well as having the some of the lowest casualty figures in the world, road injuries in the UK have been falling steadily in recent years.

The government has set a goal of a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads by the year 2010.

Deaths per billion vehicle-kilometres in 2001 (selected countries) Turkey - 73.0 Slovak Republic - 46.9 South Korea - 39.0 Greece - 26.7 France 14.8 New Zealand - 12.4 United Kingdom - 7.5 source: International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD)

Last year, there were 302,605 road casualties of which 3,431 people died - both figures showing a slight reduction on 2001 and a more pronounced dip of about 5% on the 1990s average.

Despite this success, motorcyclists and drivers of goods vehicles are increasingly at risk of suffering a fatal accident, even though overall casualties for these two groups are down.

While injuries continue to fall in the UK, across the world there are huge disparities in road safety records.

In terms of road deaths, the UK is the safest country in Europe.

Domestically there were six deaths per 100,000 people in 2000, against 15 per 100,000 in both Belgium and Spain.

Against this fall in casualties, car use remains on the increase and, on Wednesday the government announced plans to expand and improve some of the most congested parts on the motorway network.

Better safety features in cars and slower moving traffic are among the many reasons cited for the UK's relative success, although no single factor has been identified.