THE A229 is officially Maidstone’s most dangerous road, with 105 accidents in 12 months.

The carriageway, which passes through the county town, linking Medway and Hawkhurst, had eight serious collisions in 2007, although none was fatal.

The statistics for January to December 2007 have just been released by Kent County Council and show Maidstone is the worst borough in the county for fatal collisions, with 11 last year.

The number has more than doubled since 2005, when there were just five.

Other roads with high crash rates are the M20, which had two fatal collisions in 2007, the A20, which had one, the A249, which had two, and the A274, where two people lost their lives.

The A26, which takes traffic from Maidstone towards Tonbridge, was also singled out as being particularly bad, especially as it does not carry as much traffic as the motorways and the stretch included in the statistics is only a few miles long.

The road became the subject of a campaign when teenager Perri McIlwraith lost her life on the South Lodge Bend in May last year.

Figures show that despite safety improvements at the tail end of 2007, there were still 36 accidents on the small stretch between Maidstone and Teston and five were serious enough to cause life-threatening injuries.

Alan Hayes, from the Safer Roads for Teston Campaign, lost his brother-in-law Andrew Tate in a crash on the South Lodge Bend in January 2005.

He said: "The figures for the A26 are very high. We have long been aware of the dangers of this road as there have been so many people injured and killed along here. These statistics reiterate that more must be done.

"However, bad driving is a contributory factor in most accidents. My brother-in-law died because someone was overtaking when they shouldn’t have been. Joyce Denning, who was knocked down in the village, died because a driver was speeding.

"It seems to me that educating drivers is also very important."

Surprisingly, the M20 was not as bad as some of the smaller roads for the number of collisions.

The motorway had 60 recorded crashes in 2007, of which only four were deemed serious and one was fatal.

The A229 had the highest number of crashes at 105, with seven serious and none fatal, although the high number could be because the stretch of road included is more than 10 miles long.

On the A249 there were 56 crashes, two fatal and seven serious.

But another worrying trend is that for the A274 between Maidstone and Headcorn.

On this stretch of road there were 39 accidents, of which two were fatal and nine serious – double the number of serious accidents on the M20.