Reported road casualties in Great Britain: quarterly provisional estimates year ending June 2017

These provisional figures show there were 1,710 road deaths in the 12 months ending June 2017, a 5% fall compared with the corresponding period ending June 2016. The total number of casualties also fell by 5% to 176,500 across the same period.

The DfT describes the fall in road deaths as ‘statistically insignificant’ and says is ‘likely that the natural variation in the figures explains this change’. However, the bulletin goes on to say that the reduction in overall casualties is ‘statistically significant’.

There were 27,130 killed or seriously injured casualties (KSIs) in the same period, but the DfT says ‘comparisons of this figure with earlier years should be interpreted with caution due to changes in systems for severity reporting by some police forces’.

Traffic levels rose by 1.4% in the same period, meaning the fatality rate per billion vehicle miles travelled fell by 6%.

Looking at road user type, there was a rise in the number of pedestrian casualties – up 1% to 24,190. Of those, 6,100 (25%) were KSIs. Cycle casualties also rose by 2% to 18,870, and of that figure, 20% (3,830) were KSIs.

There were, however, decreases in the total number of motorcycle casualties (down 3% to 18,390) and car users (down 8% to 103,010). In terms of motorcyclists, 33% (6,220) of those casualties were KSIs.

There were 16,090 child casualties (0-15 years) – unchanged compared to the previous period.

Looking specifically at Q2 2017, 400 road users were killed – a fall of 10% on the same period in 2016. Casualties of all severities also decreased, down by 6% to 41,700.