Child Road Safety and Poverty Research Project

The output of this research is a prioritised five year programme of measures which aim to reduce road collisions and casualties involving children in deprived areas of Northern Ireland. These measures complement the measures set out in the current Road Safety Strategy to 2020, recently published by the Department of the Environment.

Earlier research published by DOE in 2010 confirmed that there was a strong relationship between child pedestrian road casualties and areas of deprivation. This research has built upon those findings by undertaking further statistical modelling and practical qualitative investigations with stakeholders across Northern Ireland.

The distribution of child casualties is not uniform and a disproportionate number of casualties occur in deprived areas. The research presents child casualties by Multiple Deprivation Measure (MDM) deciles; an average decile figure for each year is also presented.

The data shows that:

• The number of child casualties decreased from 2003 to 2005, then increased to 2007
before dropping back in 2008;

• The number of casualties in decile MDM 1 (the most deprived areas) is a factor of 2 to 3 times the decile MDM 10 (the least deprived areas) number;

• The number of casualties in decile MDM 1 is substantially greater than the average value;

• The number of casualties in decile MDM 1 is substantially greater than the average
value.