The characteristics of pedestrian road traffic accidents and the resulting injuries

Pedestrian casualties are often the most vulnerable members of society, so an understanding of the causes and consequences of pedestrian accidents is important as the demographics of the population changes in the coming years.

Recent changes in vehicle design, including the recent legislation on pedestrian protection, may also affect the consequences of pedestrian accidents.

This report has used a number of different sources of information. These include medical data collected by all hospitals in England (the Hospital Episode Statistics) and more in-depth data collected by the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service, which operates from the Royal London Hospital.

More traditional sources of accident data have also been used including the national police STATS19 database, in-depth accident studies (On The Spot and the Co-operative Crash Injury Study) and police fatal file reports.

This report provides a snapshot of the causes and consequences of pedestrian traffic accidents, which shows the most important considerations for reducing pedestrian casualties. Continuous monitoring is required to determine the results of changing vehicle design and pedestrian demographics.