The number of people killed or seriously injured on Essex’s roads fell last year.

A total of 46 people died and 861 were seriously injured following crashes in the county during 2017 – down from 64 deaths and 970 serious injuries in 2016.

Adam Pipe, Essex Police casualty reduction manager, said: “Our most vulnerable road users are drivers and passengers aged between 17 and 25, motorcyclists, older drivers, and pedestrians and we will be focussing our engagement, enforcement and education work towards them.

“We also continue to see people drink driving with 1,061 people arrested for it last year - a rise from 2016.

"This is unacceptable and will again be a focus for us in the coming 12 months.”

2017 saw key changes to national legislation including an increase in the penalty for using a mobile phone behind the wheel in March.

Since the beginning of March, we have dealt with more than 2,000 mobile phone offences.