NORTH-EAST drivers are being urged to slow down when it’s raining after seven people were killed and 82 seriously injured in the region when driving in the rain last year.

Highways England is launching a new safety campaign warning drivers that ‘when it rains, it kills’ after the latest statistics showed that people are 30 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the roads in rain than in snow.

The figures also reveal that travelling too fast for the current conditions was identified as a factor in one-in-nine road deaths in Great Britain last year, with drivers failing to alter how they drive when road conditions change.

Highways England is warning that even driving within the speed limit in wet weather could be dangerous if drivers do not allow extra space.

And the message is being reinforced with rain-activated paint messages visible to people leaving motorway services when it is raining.

Highways England’s Head of Road Safety, Richard Leonard, said: “Most of us already slow down in snow, ice or fog but when it rains we consider it normal so don’t adapt our driving.”