Police forces should treat road deaths with the same gravity as other types of violent crime and must stop diverting officers from traffic duties to targeting street robberies, a leading police group said yesterday.

The Superintendents' Association called on the Home Office to reinstate proactive road policing as a national priority, to reduce the number of people being killed in accidents.

The demand came as motorists' groups and safety campaigners warned the government that the plundering of traffic divisions meant that there would be more deaths and injuries on the roads.

"In the 1980s, about 15% of the national police force was deployed on traffic duties," said Edmund King, of the RAC Foundation. "We estimate that currently it is less than 5%."

Concern about the diminishing importance of road policing has been exacerbated in recent months by the decision of the Metropolitan police to divert personnel to its flagship "safer streets initiative", introduced in February to halt soaring street crime in the capital's worse affected boroughs.

With pressure from the Home Office and Downing Street to bring the problem under control, the Met commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has made it a top priority.

Mike McAndrew, a spokesman for the Superintendents' Association, who works at the Met, said the street crime explosion had been caused, in large part, by youths stealing mobile phones from one another.

He said: "I am not saying that traffic policing is more important, but it is of equal importance. Road traffic policing is not a ministerial priority, but it should be. A lot of street crime is low level stuff, whereas there are people being killed all the time in road traffic accidents.

"Nobody is going out there to catch the people who are causing accidents by speeding. It's almost as if we have thrown our hands up and said we can't do anything about it."