This publication provides the number of personal-injury road traffic accidents in Great Britain that were reported to the police for 2014. It also includes the number of people killed or injured in these accidents and which road user group they were in. The figures make up part of a long running series going back to 1926. The current set of definitions and detail of information goes back to 1979, providing a long period for comparison. The information used to create the statistics are collected by police forces, either through officers attending the scene of accidents, or from members of the public reporting the accident in police stations after the incident. There is no obligation for people to report accidents to the police. These figures, therefore, do not represent the full range of all accidents or casualties in Great Britain. Please see the section on strengths and weaknesses of the data for further details. All accidents that were reported to the police and occurred on a public highway involving at least one motor vehicle, horse rider or pedal cyclist, and where at least one person was injured are included. Accidents that happened on private land (including private drives) or car parks are not included in the statistics. A total of 1,775 people were killed in reported road traffic accidents in Great Britain in 2014. This is an increase of 62 fatalities (or 4 per cent) from 2013. It is the third lowest year on record after 2012 and 2013. There were 45 per cent fewer fatalities in 2014 than a decade earlier in 2005 and 37 per cent fewer than the 2005-09 average. In 2014, there were 22,807 seriously injured casualties in reported road traffic accidents. This represents a 5.3 per cent rise from 2013 but is lower than the 23,039 seriously injured in 2012. There was a total of 194,477 casualties of all severities in reported road traffic accidents during 2014. This is the second lowest level on record, though it is 5.9 per cent higher than in 2013. It is the first increase in overall casualties since 1997. With the exception of 2010 to 2011, which was affected by severe weather, 2014 is the first rise in fatalities over the calendar year since 2003. It is also the first rise in seriously injured casualties since 1994. A total of 146,322 personal-injury road traffic accidents were reported to the police in 2014. Of these accidents, 1,658 resulted in at least one fatality. There were fewer reported accidents in both 2012 and 2013, but the 2014 level is lower than every other year on record except 1926 and 1927. Historically and still currently, car occupants have made up the largest road user group in each casualty severity. This is because cars make up almost 80 per cent of all traffic driven in Great Britain. However, casualty numbers by road user group are not proportionate to the total distance that the user group travels. The vulnerable user groups (usually defied as pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorcyclist) all account for disproportionately more casualties than would be expected, given the distance travelled. One of the more noticeable discrepancies is for pedal cycles. Although pedal cycles have a similar fatality rate as pedestrians, at around 35 to 38 deaths per billion miles travelled, there is a marked difference between the two groups for overall reported casualties. For casualties of all severities, pedal cyclists have a similar rate to motorcyclists, at over 6,500 casualties per billion passenger miles. The rate for pedestrians is 2,110 casualties per billion miles walked. (Author/publisher)
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