UK and Bromley Traffic Accident Statistics

The London Road Safety Unit (part of TfL) has recently published the road accident figures for 2006.

Fatal accidents rose by 8% over the previous year to 231, and serious injuries also rose by 8% to 3,715.  These figures were unexpected of course and TfL suggest there is some error in “data processing” but have been unable to identify exactly what. Although slight injuries fell by 8%, those figures are more suspect due to possible variations in reporting. The KSI data is particularly disappointing bearing in mind that resources tend to concentrated on reducing the killed and seriously injured numbers.

Taking the overall casualty figures, pedal cyclists were the only group though that showed an increase, probably simply because cycling is more common. Accidents involving powered two-wheelers, which have been a growing problem in recent years, seem at least to have stabilised.

Injuries Fall However

But the good news is that overall casualties were down 3 per cent. Seriously injured fell by 6% to 33,707, and slightly injured fell by 4% to 253,393. There was a particularly good reduction in child injuries which fell by 8%. The breakdown by type of road user is as follows:

Incidentally any of our readers who are still awake will notice that the total does not appear to add up, but that is how the data was published by the Department for Transport.

It is plain that fatalities to motorcycle riders continue to rise, which is another disconcerting trend. These were up 14% on the previous year, and up 48% from the baseline. Pedestrian accidents and child accidents appear to be continuing to fall, but is this because we are walking less and children are now often taken to school by car? In summary, interpreting this data to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of road safety programmes is exceedingly difficult. But it is also true that if you argue that fining several million motorists every year for breaking a technical speed limit is having a positive impact on overall road deaths, then clearly you would be wrong.).

London & Bromley Data

The London Road Safety Unit also recently published data for London which shows similar overall trends. For example, fatalities fell by 7 to 272 in 2003, but are actually still up by 9% on the 1994-98 baseline. Serious injuries in London fell by 9% last year which is a good result and may be because of a stronger concentration of effort on prevention of such accidents. Overall casualties were down by 7% on 2002.

The data for Bromley is shown below, which is generally very positive. Bromley was second in the list of all London boroughs in the overall reduction in accidents, even though Bromley adopted a “no more speed humps” policy in 2002! Surely a demonstration that Bromley’s policies are wiser than other London boroughs? Or is this the result of bias in data collection by the police as many people in Bromley are coming to realise that reporting minor incidents to the police is a waste of time as often they simply do not respond?

Fatalities in Bromley rose to 13 (but the small numbers are affected by statistical randomness and therefore difficult to interpret).  It’s worth pointing out before everyone is too self-congratulatory about the above numbers that the weather was significantly drier than normal in 2003. This would have had a positive impact on accident numbers.

Congestion Charge Impact

There was no significant difference in overall injuries in the central London boroughs as against outer London boroughs (minus 6.3% versus minus 7%), although the City of London at minus 23% did particularly well. It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions on the impact of reduced traffic in the Congestion Charging zone.

Bromley traffic accident hotspot

In 2021, a traffic accident blackspot in Bromley was on the A21 just outside Bromley North station, around the junction of Rodway Road and East Street. This map shows the hotspot.