Roads: Safety

(asked on 26th April 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, further to oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport of 24 April 2018, Official Report, column 356WH, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on road safety of the decision to eliminate safety targets; and what the killed or seriously injured figures were in each year from 2007 to 2017.


Answered by
Jesse Norman Portrait
Jesse Norman
This question was answered on 3rd May 2018

There is no robust academic evidence to indicate the lack of targets in the UK has contributed to the lack of progress in road casualty reduction since 2010. There has been a stalling of progress in road casualty reductions across many economically advanced countries, affecting countries with targets (e.g. Sweden and the Netherlands) as well as the UK where there is no target.

The KSI statistics for road accident casualties between 2007 and 2016 can be found in the table below along with a comparison to the 2010 – 2014 average. The KSI figures for 2017 will be published later this year.

Year

Killed

Seriously injured

Killed or Seriously injured

Slightly injured

All casualties

2007

2,946

27,774

30,720

217,060

247,780

2008

2,538

26,034

28,572

202,333

230,905

2009

2,222

24,690

26,912

195,234

222,146

2010

1,850

22,660

24,510

184,138

208,648

2011

1,901

23,122

25,023

178,927

203,950

2012

1,754

23,039

24,793

170,930

195,723

2013

1,713

21,657

23,370

160,300

183,670

2014

1,775

22,807

24,582

169,895

194,477

2015

1,730

22,144

23,874

162,315

186,189

2016

1,792

24,101

25,893

155,491

181,384

2010 -2014 average

1,799

22,657

24,456

172,838

197,294

Reticulating Splines