Road Casualties GB

1 October 2013

 The Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain (RRCGB) Annual Report: 2012  show that:

• a total of 195,723 people will killed or injured in road accidents reported to the police, 4% lower than in 2011
• 1,754 people were killed, an 8% decrease from 2011 and 23,039 were seriously injured, down 0.4%
• vehicle traffic levels remained broadly stable for the second year running, though there was a small fall of 0.4% between 2011 and 2012
• the number of fatalities fell for all road user types except pedal cyclists (up from 107 in 2011 to 118 in 2012) and bus and coach occupants
• pedestrian fatalities fell by 7%, motorcycle fatalities fell by 9%, car occupant fatalities fell by 9%, and goods vehicle occupant fatalities remained the same as in 2011
• our best current estimate of the total of number of road casualties in Great Britain annually, including those not reported to the police, is within the range 630 thousand to 790 thousand with a central estimate of 710 thousand
• the total value of prevention of reported road accidents in 2012 was estimated to be £15.1 billion (this includes an estimate of the cost of damage only accidents but does not allow for unreported injury accidents)
• provisional estimates for 2012 suggest that 280 people were killed in drink drive accidents, an increase of around 17% compared with 2011 and accounting for 16% of all road deaths in Great Britain.

The full series of reports present detailed statistics about the circumstances of personal injury accidents, including the types of vehicles involved, the resulting casualties and factors which may contribute to accidents. In addition to detailed tables there are four articles containing further analysis on specific road safety topics.

Most of the statistics in the report are based on information about accidents reported to the police. However, other sources such as mortality, national travel survey, coroners’ reports and data from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, are also used as well as population and traffic data to provide a wider context.