ESSEX County Council’s street light switch-off is risking lives, claims a leading roadside breakdown service.

The AA says night-time accidents in bad weather on 30 mph urban roads have been slashed by 15.6 per cent over the past five years.

But that figure falls to just 2.0 per cent where there are no lights or they have been turned off, according to the firm’s research.

AA President Edmund King said: “Worse accident rates on roads with street lights turned off or not present is an insidious threat that has crept in literally under the cover of darkness.

“Many local authorities based their risk assessment on police accident profiles for the affected roads. This had two huge drawbacks.

“Firstly and fundamentally, roads that are safe when lit can become unsafe with the lights switched off, but that is only shown when drivers, cyclists, bikers and pedestrians start to get hurt and killed.

“Some local authorities have changed their minds after casualties – Powys in 2009 and the scheme pioneers Buckinghamshire in 2012 – but why did people have to become street light victims to prove the point?

“Secondly, with an extra casualty here and there, it is difficult to spot a creeping overall trend that might suggest something is dangerously wrong with a blackout.”

Official statistics show that, on darkened 40 mph built-up roads, accidents in the wet, snow or ice are down 21.8 per cent where there is lighting, but only 5.2 per cent where there is not.

And overall from 2007 to 2012, a 19.6 per cent reduction in road accidents along town and city roads where street lights were on shrank to 8.8 per cent where drivers, cyclists, bikers and pedestrians travelled in darkness.

An Essex County Council spokesman said: “The part-night lighting scheme has been in place for Maldon and Uttlesford since 2007 and consultations around the introduction of part-night lighting for the county have taken place since September 2013.

“This has given parish and town councils, Borough/City Councils, county councillors and the emergency services the opportunity to make any requests for areas that should not be included in the scheme.

“We have ensured that those lights which meet the exception criteria are excluded from the scheme such as town centres, key road junctions and accident cluster sites. Essex County Council has been working closely with the emergency services and responds to representation from them regarding any areas which they believe should be exempt from the Part-Night lighting scheme.”

More than 70 per cent of Essex’s 127,000 street lights are now switched off from midnight to 5am.

Essex Police has previously said crime has fallen in that period since the blackout.