There was a 3% rise in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents in Britain in the year to June, including an increase of 30 in the number of fatalities during the year.
Department for Transport (DfT) officials said the increase in the number killed or seriously injured (KSI casualties) was statistically significant, while the rise in road deaths could have been part of natural variation.
The DfT has published its quarterly provisional estimates of reported road casualties in Great Britain for the year ending June 2016.
There were 24,620 KSI casualties during the year, up 3% on the previous year, and 1,800 road deaths, compared with 1,770 in the year to June 2015. In the 2015 calendar year, 1,732 people were killed in road accidents in Great Britain.
Between April and June of this year, 450 people were killed in reported road accidents, representing a 7% increase from 420 in the same quarter of 2015. Officials warned that the change should be interpreted with caution as quarterly casualty figures are prone to fluctuation.
There were 185,010 casualties of all severities in the year, down 2% on the previous year.
Officials suggested that a ‘partial explanation’ for the increase in KSI casualties ‘could be in changes in reporting practices leading to casualties who would have formerly been classified as slight injuries being reclassified to serious injuries’.
Motor vehicle traffic increased by 1.5% over the period, meaning that the overall casualty rate per vehicle mile decreased by 4%.
There was a decrease in KSI casualties for pedal cyclists (3%) and motorcyclists (1%) over the year but pedestrian KSIs increased by 3% and car occupant KSIs rose by 9%.
Annual road deaths for the years to June have plateaued at around 1,800 for the past five years, having previously fallen by around a third between 2008 (2,726) and 2012.
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