Nearly half of all the County Air Ambulance's missions were to serious road accidents last year, according to new figures.

The emergency service - which covers 11 counties including Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire - was called to more than 2,000 incidents between June 2004 and last June.

Of these, 958 (48 per cent) were to serious road accidents, an increase of one per cent on the previous year.

The County Air Ambulance is now supporting National Road Victim Month, to raise motorists' awareness of basic checks that can be done on their vehicles.

Ian Clayton, air operation manager said: "Nearly half of our missions are related to road crashes.

"With the rising number of incidents County Air Ambulance attends, we felt it appropriate to once again support National Road Victim Month.

"And by making all road users aware of those most at risk, we hope it will help to ensure that people take them into consideration while using the roads and potentially reduce the numbers of road deaths and injuries."

Organised by RoadPeace, the UK's charity for road crash victims, National Road Victim Month was first established in