East Sussex is one of the most dangerous places in England to drive, new figures reveal.

It comes fourth from the top in a regional table of people killed or seriously injured in traffic accidents.

A total of 122 people out of every 100,000 died or were seriously hurt on the roads in East Sussex during 1998.

East Sussex comes behind Warwickshire, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire, which comes top with 165.The figure for West Sussex is 78 and for Brighton and Hove it is 61.

The table has been published by the Government as part of its bid to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent by 2010.

Jay Calascione, a member of RoadPeace, which is lobbying the Government to toughen up sentences for bad drivers, believes West Sussex fares better than East Sussex because of its better road network.

She said: "Crashes on rural roads are far more likely to result in fatalities because of the excessive speed which cars travel on them.

"One of the reasons why West Sussex might compare favourably with East Sussex is that our road structure is better."

Mrs Calascione, who lives at Sidlesham, near Chichester, added: "It's criss-crossed with major dual carriageways and motorways where you don't get as many accidents."

Inspector Mark Powles, of Sussex Police, said: "In my experience, more car accidents happen on country roads where the speed limit is 60mph as opposed to town centres where they are 30 and 40mph.

"Clearly, there have been fatal accidents in places like Brighton and Hove, but where traffic is permitted to travel at high speeds there will be more accidents."

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