UK road fatality rate rises

DfT provisional figures for 2020 show 1472 fatailities, down from 1752 in 2019; however, road traffic over the year fell by 21%, impacted by the pandemic. As a result, fatailty rates per vehicle kilometre rose by 6%.

Conversely, pedal cycle traffic increased by 46% in 2020. The number of cyclists killed on Britain's roads increased from 100 in 2019 to 140 in 2020. Therefore, whereas this increase in cyclist deaths is of course bad news, the fatailty rate was actually down by 4%. In fact, overall casualty rates among cyclists saw the greatest reduction (34%) compared to all other road user types.

The Exectutive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), David Davies said there had been 'a decade of missed opportunities' as the UK was ranked 31st out of 32 European countries in terms of progress in reducing road deaths over the past 10 years.

[Source: Highways magazine July 2021]