In 2009, 23,239 personal injury collisions occurring on the public highway were reported to the Metropolitan and City of London police services within the Greater London area. This represents a slight increase of 0.5% over the 23,116 collisions recorded in 2008. These resulted in 27,979 casualties, a decrease of 0.6% compared to the 28,153 recorded in 2008. These changes - as well as much of the data recorded in this report - need to be seen in the context of current national and London-wide casualty reduction targets. In March 2000 the former Government published its road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets for 2010 in the report Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone. The targets, compared with the average for 1994-98, are: • a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road collisions • a 50% reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured • a 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres. In addition, Transport for London published its first Road Safety Plan in November 2001. As well as endorsing the national targets the Plan recognised particular issues for vulnerable road users. Consequently, the 40% reduction target for fatal or serious casualties was to be applied in London to: • pedestrians • pedal cyclists • powered two wheelers to ensure that attention is directed at these groups. By 2004 these targets had been achieved in London, apart from those for powered two wheelers. The former Mayor therefore announced new, more challenging targets in March 2006, to be achieved by 2010: • a 50% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured • a 50% reduction in the number of cyclists and pedestrians killed or seriously injured • a 40% reduction in the number of powered two wheeler users killed or seriously injured (unchanged) • a 60% reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured • a 25% reduction in the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometers. These targets are supported by the current Mayor’s Transport Strategy published in May 2010. By the end of 2009: • slight casualties were 37% below the 1994-98 average, following virtually no change (0.5 increase) to 24,752 in 2009. Note that slight casualty changes relate to absolute figures rather than rates • all fatal or serious casualties were 52% below the 1994-98 average, following a 8% decrease to 3,227 in 2009 • child fatal or serious casualties were 72% below the 1994-98 average, following a decrease of 15% to 263 in 2009. Considering the targets for vulnerable road users in London: • pedestrian fatal or serious casualties were 51% below the 1994-98 average, after a decrease of 13% to 1,055 in 2009 • pedal cyclist fatal or serious casualties were 24% below the 1994-98 average, following a 3% decrease to 433 in 2009 • powered two wheeler user fatal or serious casualties were 24% below the 1994- 98 average, after a 4% decrease to 706 in 2009. For further information on progress towards the casualty reduction targets in London, see the report Towards the year 2010: monitoring casualties in Greater London, Issue 10 which was published in August 2010 by TfL. Following recent change in government a decision about future road safety policy and the role of national targets in particular is awaited. In London, a new Road Safety Plan to 2020 is being prepared for consultation in the coming months. The trend in total casualties in Greater London over the past ten years was generally flat between 1999 and 2000. However, in the subsequent nine years there has been a noticeable decline, although in the past two years this has been less marked (see figures 1.1 and 1.10). The remaining high numbers of casualties continue to place a substantial burden on society in terms of social, emotional and economic costs. The cost to the community of collisions in Greater London for the year 2009 is estimated to be almost £2.2 billion at 2008 prices (see Section 5: Collision costs). This suggests that resources still need to be invested in new and existing road safety programmes. This would enable activity to target those audiences and areas suffering from high levels of road casualties. During 2009, casualties in Greater London accounted for around 13% of those in Great Britain as a whole. KSI casualties represented 12% (source ‘Reported Road Casualties Great Britain: Main Results 2009’ Department for Transport 2009). The collisions and casualties occurred against a background in which total road traffic in London fell by 2% between 2007 and 2008, having also fallen by 1.4% in the previous seven years between 2000 and 2007. The general decline in London traffic between 2000 and 2007 is in contrast with the trend for traffic in Great Britain as a whole, which increased by 10% between 2000 and 2007. (source Travel in London report 2 Transport for London, 2010). This report provides background information on personal injury road traffic collisions on the public highway occurring within the Greater London area and reported to the police. This information will assist in policy formulation for road safety, traffic and transport planning studies, the production of road safety plans, and for reference purposes. This is the 24th annual report published by Transport for London and it’s predecessor organisations. The individual tables in Section 2 (Collision Analysis), Section 3 (Casualty Analysis) and Section 4 (Vehicle Analysis) are produced without comment. This annual report is presented primarily showing figures and tables only. The extensive commentary found in previous annual reports has been removed to make the document more manageable. Further analysis of London’s progress towards the current road casualty reduction targets can be found in Towards the year 2010: monitoring casualties in Greater London. The tables and graphical illustrations are those most commonly requested and not an exhaustive list of possible analyses of the data. Additional tabulations of collision, casualty and vehicle factors associated with personal injury collisions may be available on request (see appendices). Appendix 6.1 provides information about changes in the coverage and reporting of collisions that it is important to be aware of when considering very long term trends. (Author/publisher)
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