Road Accidents

The number of road users in the United Kingdom is on the increase, as the adult population continues to grow at a rate of knots. In 1999, the UK population was 58,682,466 and in 2008 stood at 61,399,118. As a result, the expectation would be a rise in road casualties...

However, the chart (see above) shows us that the opposite is in fact true. The casualties on the roads have dropped significantly over the last nine years, down by almost 33% (or nearly 100,000 casualties).

An interesting pattern on the chart is the constant and gradual decrease in casualties. This shows that it hasn’t been down to short term government campaigns, which would show fluctuating values in the bars, but rather a long-term crackdown on reckless driving and promoting safety on the roads.

As the chart shows, car drivers have been the predominant casualty in road accidents since 1999, but have also been the type of casualty that have shed the most in percentage terms too. This is shown in the graph by the continual reduction in size of the green bar.

Out of the four main modes of transport on British roads (except Horse and Cart!), pedal cyclists make up the least of the casualties, followed by motorcyclists and there were just over 30,000 pedestrian casualties in 2008. Campaigns such as this recent one will help to further reduce the numbers.

Spreadsheet from the DataStore