New research by safety watchdog Road Safety Analysis indicates that children from lower income families are more likely to be injured on the road.

According to the report, entitled Child Casualties 2010: A Study into Resident Risk of Children on Roads in Great Britain 2004-08, the children most at risk are located in most regions of the UK, with the exception of London and the South East.

The study compared risk levels among children aged up to 15 across 408 local authority areas.

Researchers collated five years’ data covering over 120,000 child road casualties nationally, and found that on an average one child in every 427 is injured in a road traffic crash each year.

Preston is cited as the riskiest single location, where children are more than twice as likely to be injured on the road than the national average, and five times more likely than those in Kensington and Chelsea.

Liverpool is the second most dangerous place for road accidents involving children, according to the report.