In March 2000, a national casualty reduction target for Great Britain for2010 was announced by the Government: 'By 2010 we want to achieve, compared with the average for 1994-98: killed or seriously injured in road accidents;mber of children killed or seriously injured; and slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres'. A key element in preparing the new target was to forecastthe number of casualties in 2010, taking account wherever possible of factors that might influence this number substantially. The forecasts had been prepared by TRL, based on detailed analyses of casualty trends from 1983and incorporating assessments of future measures for improving road safety. TRL was subsequently commissioned to monitor progress towards the new target. This paper will review the results of the monitoring, which has built upon the earlier forecasting methodology to assess the likelihood of achieving or surpassing the target. It will also summarise recent British casualty trends. A particular topic of concern has been the failure of the number of deaths to fall after 1998. When the analysis to inform the choiceof target for 2010 was carried out, there was no clear difference betweenthe trends for fatal and serious casualties, so it was decided that thereshould no separate target for the number of deaths. It has now become clear that the trend in the number of deaths changed in the mid-1990s. Analyses of accident statistics which have helped to identify the likely reasonswill be presented. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.
Abstract