Provisional data from the Department for Transport (DfT) showed the 3% rise came alongside a 2.2% increase in traffic in the 12 months to September.
AA president Edmund King said the death toll was the "equivalent of three plane crashes" and called for more action.
Separate DfT figures suggest about 240 deaths in 2014 involved drivers over the legal alcohol limit.
Officials said the rise in deaths in the year ending September 2015 was not "statistically significant" - meaning the increase was "probably to do with a combination of factors that have come about by chance, rather than any specific change".
Steve Gooding, director of automotive research charity the RAC Foundation, said: "Forty-nine more people dying on the roads might not be statistically significant, but try telling that to their family and friends.
"It is true that traffic is on the rise again and that might partly explain why the downward trend in road deaths has plateaued in recent years.
"But the pressing question is: what do we now do to get back on track?"
Neil Greig, the Institute of Advanced Motorists' director of policy and research, said that although drink-drive deaths were "flatlining", the numbers were still "unacceptable".
He called for the drink-drive limit elsewhere in Britain to be lowered to be in line with Scotland. In 2014, the Scottish government reduced the limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg.
The DfT said the new estimated figure of 240 road deaths involving people over the legal alcohol limit in 2014 meant the level was unchanged from 2013.
Roads Minister Andrew Jones said: "Britain continues to have some of the safest roads in the world but we cannot be complacent on road safety and are determined to do more.
"We launched our road safety plan last year which includes plans for tougher penalties for people using mobile phones while driving, extra money to crack down on drug-drivers and funding to train the next generation of cyclists."

The US Navy said on 8 April that the Carl Vinson strike group was travelling to the Korean peninsula amid tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Last week President Trump said an "armada" was being sent.
But the group was actually farther away over the weekend, moving through the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean.
The US military's Pacific Command said on Tuesday that it had cancelled a port visit to Perth, but had completed previously scheduled training with Australia off its northwest coast after departing Singapore on 8 April.
The strike group was now "proceeding to the Western Pacific as ordered".
It is not clear whether the failure to arrive was a deliberate deception, perhaps designed to frighten North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, a change of plan or simple miscommunication, the BBC's Korea correspondent Stephen Evans says.
Either way, US Vice-President Mike Pence was undeterred as he spoke aboard the USS Ronald Reagan - an aircraft carrier docked in Japan - during his tour of the region, vowing to "defeat any attack and meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response".
North Korea and the US have ratcheted up tensions in recent weeks and the movement of the strike group had raised the question of a pre-emptive strike by the US.
On Wednesday, Mr Pence described the country as the "most dangerous and urgent threat to peace and security" in the Asia-Pacific.
His words came after the North held a show of military might in a parade over the weekend and tested another missile on Sunday, which blew up almost immediately after launch, the Pentagon said.
The US also accused North Korea of trying to "provoke something", with US Defence Secretary James Mattis calling the test a reckless move on Tuesday.
He said the US was "working closely" with China to engage North Korea.
Pyongyang said it may test missiles on a weekly basis, and warned of "all-out war" if the US takes military action.
"If the US is planning a military attack against us, we will react with a nuclear pre-emptive strike by our own style and method," Vice-Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol told the BBC on Monday.
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Some 1,780 people died on Britain's roads last year - 49 more than the previous year, new figures suggest.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
A US aircraft carrier and other warships did not sail towards North Korea - but went in the opposite direction, it has emerged.