Government announces an increase in casualties

28 June 2012

The UK Government has announced the first casualty increase since 2003 despite a levelling of in vehicle traffic levels.

The annual number of people killed in road accidents reported to the police has increased, by 3 per cent, from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011. This is the first increase since 2003.
 The number of people reported killed or seriously injured has also increased by 2 per cent to 25,023 from 24,510 in 2010 – the first annual increase since 1994.
•The total number of casualties (slight injuries, serious injuries and fatalities) in road accidents reported to the police in Great Britain in 2011 continued to fall, by 2 per cent, from 208,648 in 2010 to 203,950 in 2011
•Total reported child casualties (ages 0-15) have continued to fall, by 0.5 per cent in 2011 to 19,474. The number of children killed or seriously injured also fell, decreasing by 4 per cent to 2,412 in 2011, from 2,502 in 2010.
•Vehicle traffic levels are broadly stable after falling for 3 years. The overall casualty rate for accidents reported to the police per billion vehicle miles continued to fall to 666 per billion vehicle miles, compared to 681 casualties per billion vehicle miles in 2010 but the killed or seriously injured rate increased to 82 per billion vehicle miles.
 

A more comprehensive analysis of 2011 casualty statistics will be published later this year in Reported Road Casualties Great Britain: 2011 annual report.

Further information is available here.