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Key 2008 Road Casualty Statistics
22/06/2009
Scotland's Chief Statistician today published key 2008 road casualty statistics.
Main Findings
2008 Provisional figures show:
- There were a total of 15,563 road casualties, (669 or 4 per cent fewer than 2007), the lowest since 1949
Of which there were: 272 fatalities - 9 (or 3 per cent) fewer than 2007; 2,535 seriously injured - 150 (or 6 per cent) more than 2007; 2,807 killed or seriously injured - 141 (or 5 per cent) more than 2007; 12,756 slightly injured - 810 (or 6 per cent) fewer than 2007 - 1,694 child casualties, 123 (7 per cent) fewer than in 2007, including 20 fatalities: 11 more deaths than in 2007.
- 9,648 car users casualties, 153 of whom died and 2,595 pedestrian casualties (including 61 fatalities).
- 1,039 motorcyclist casualties (34 of whom died), 728 pedal cyclist casualties and 584 bus and coach user casualties in 2008.
- 193 or 71 per cent of all fatalities were male, and 79 (or 29 per cent) were female.
- 20 per cent (3,163) of all casualties were aged 16 -22, of which 1,865 were male (12 per cent of all casualties) and 1,298 were female (8 per cent of all casualties).
There are currently three GB-wide national targets for casualty reductions by 2010- in all cases a larger reduction in casualties has been achieved:
- 2,807 people were killed or seriously injured in 2008, 42 per cent below the 1994-98 baseline average level (target of 40 per cent)
- 291 children were killed or seriously injured in 2008: 65 per cent below the 1994-98 average (target of 50 per cent).
- A 2007 slight casualty rate of 30.37 casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres (the latest available traffic volume estimate): 35 per cent below the 1994-98 average (target of 10 per cent)
More detailed analyses of the final 2008 figures will appear later in the year, in the publication Road Casualties Scotland 2008
In 2000, the UK Government, the then Scottish Executive and the National Assembly for Wales announced a new road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets for 2010. The targets, which were given in the document Tomorrow's roads - safer for everyone, are based on the annual average casualty levels over the period 1994 to 1998, and are for:
- a 40 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
- a 50 per cent reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured
- a 10 per cent reduction in the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres
Progress towards these targets is shown in section 10 of Key 2008 Road Casualty Statistics.
The Scottish Road Safety Framework was launched on the June 15, 2009. This outlines Scottish specific targets which will be adopted after the 2010 GB targets.
This bulletin presents provisional statistics of injury road accidents (i.e. road accidents in which one or more people were killed or injured) in Scotland in 2008. Final figures will be published in 'Road Casualties Scotland 2008' in the autumn and will include extensive analyses of the numbers of accidents, vehicles and casualties.