Organisation: TSO (on behalf of DfT)
Date uploaded: 3rd October 2010
Date published/launched: September 2010
This report covers statistics on road casualties reported to the police in Great Britain in 2009.
The statistics contained within this publication are used to inform public debates on matters of road safety, and overall they appear to show a positive trend.
In 2009 there was a reported total of 222,146 road casualties of all severities (4% lower than 2008), and of those, the number of people killed in road accidents was 2,222, a fall of 12% compared to 2008.
Car and taxi traffic remained at about the same level as in 2008, yet the number of deaths within this category fell by 16% in 2009, whilst motorcycle traffic rose by 2% over the same period as reported motorcycle user casualties fell by 4%. The total number of reported child casualties, and child pedestrian casualties also dropped, by 6% each.
Pedal cyclists fared slightly worse in 2009 when the number seriously injured rose by 6%. However, the number of pedal cyclists killed fell by 10% from 115 in 2008 to 104 in 2009.
The 2009 edition of Reported Road Casualties Great Britain presents detailed statistics about the circumstances of personal injury road accidents. Some 50 data items are collected by the police STATS19 system for each accident, including the time and location of the accident and the types of vehicles involved, as well as some information on the driver and casualties involved.
It has long been acknowledged that a considerable proportion of non-fatal accidents are not reported to the police, so inevitably the data has some limitations which should be taken into consideration if using these statistics as a key point of reference, but the data contained in this publication can be considered to be the most detailed, complete and reliable single source of information on road casualties covering the whole of Great Britain.
The current best estimate is that the total number of road casualties in Great Britain each year is 700,000.
Further analysis on specific road safety topics within the publication include an overview and trends in the police data, information on drinking and driving, analysis of contributory factors in road accidents, hospital admissions data on road casualties and other road safety research.
Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2009 Annual Report is available from TSO
(The Stationery Office).
ISBN 9780115531620. Price £46.00
Editor’s Notes
For more information please contact Emma Franklin at TSO marketing – email emma.franklin@tso.co.uk or telephone 01603 694497.
For more information contact:
Emma Franklin
T: 01603 694497