High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Thursday, August 28, 2008
Road Accident Casualties
In 2007, 282 people were killed on Scotland's roads, 2,317 were recorded as seriously injured and 13,461 suffered "slight" injury. Most of the casualties were travelling in cars (9,957, 160 of whom died), 2,676 were pedestrians (61 were killed), 1,040 were motorcyclists (40 died) and 706 were pedal cyclists (4 died). There were 1,809 child casualties, of whom 9 died.
There are three national casualty reduction targets for 2010, all based on the 1994-98 "baseline" annual averages: reductions of 40% in the numbers killed or seriously injured, 50% in the number of children killed or seriously injured, and 10% in the slight casualty rate. The relevant figures for 2007 for the three targets were, respectively, 46%, 68% and 33% below the "baseline" levels. Therefore, on the basis of these figures the reduction in killed or seriously injured was almost as great as the target and the other reductions were better than the targets.
Comparing the figures for 2007 with the annual averages for the 1994-98 "baseline" period, the number of people killed fell by 25%, seriously injured casualties dropped by 48%, slight casualties reduced in number by 23% and there was a 28% fall in overall casualty numbers. Car casualties fell by 26%, pedestrian casualties by 39% and pedal cyclist casualties by 45%. However, motorcyclist casualties increased by 11%. The number of children killed dropped from 30 to 9, and the total number of child casualties fell by 53%.
Over the longer term, casualty numbers have fallen considerably from the peak levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The numbers of people killed or injured in 2007 were at the lowest levels that had been recorded, since current records began over 50 years ago.
Source: Road Accidents Scotland and provisional figures for latest year in Key Road Accident Statistics
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