Great Britain casualties remain level for a further year

31 July 2020

In Great Britain there were 1,748 reported road deaths in 2019, similar to the level seen since 2012, which follows a period of substantial reduction in fatalities from 2006 to 2010

• The recently published report which is available here shows that there were 25,975 serious injuries in road traffic accidents reported to the police in 2019. However, comparison of this figure with earlier years should be interpreted with caution due to changes in systems for severity reporting by some police forces.
• There was a total of 153,315 casualties of all severities in reported road traffic accidents in 2019. This is 5% lower than in 2018 and is the lowest level since 1979 when this statistical series with current definitions and detail began.
• Accounting for change in traffic, the rate of fatalities per billion vehicle miles has fallen by 2% from 5.38 in 2018 to 5.25 fatalities.

The trend in the number of fatalities has been broadly flat since 2010. Previously, and particularly between 2006 and 2010, the general trend was for fatalities to fall. Since that point, most of the year on year changes are either explained by one-of causes (for instance, the snow in 2010) or natural variation.

The evidence points towards Britain being in a period when the fatality numbers are stable and most of the changes relate to random variation. The number of fatalities in 2019 (1,748) was 2% less than in 2018 (1,784), however, this small decrease may be due to natural variation.per billion vehicle miles in 2019.