Road Accidents Great Britain (RAGB) was first published in its present form some forty years ago covering the statistics for 1951. Many of the tables in this year's report can be traced back to that first edition although some changes have occurred. For example, in 1951 no distinction was made between passengers in different vehicles but statistics on taxis and horseriders were collected (34 horse rider casualties). The 1951 edition also contained information on causation factors reported by the police. Eighty seven per cent of the causes reported could be broadly defined as human error. It did not contain any information on accident rates nor did it include international comparisons. The tables in 1951 were less easy to interpret than those in more recent editions because there was little attempt to aggregate or summarise data. So for example information on the age of casualties includes data on every age up to 20 and thereafter in ten year age bands. A comparison of the 1951 figures with those for 1991 shows a variety of changes. There are also many similarities.
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