ROAD ACCIDENTS SCOTLAND 2000

The casualty reduction targets for the year 2010

In March 2000, the UK Government, the Scottish Executive and the National Assembly for Wales announced a new national road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets for 2010. These new targets were introduced to focus on achieving a further substantial improvement in road safety over the next ten years, with particular emphasis on child casualties. The new targets, which are given in the document "Tomorrow's roads - safer for everyone", are based on the annual average casualty levels over the period 1994 to 1998. By 2010 it is hoped that there will be, compared with the average for 1994-98:

• a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents.
• a 50% reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured; and
• a 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres.

Progress towards the 2010 casualty reduction targets

The charts on the page opposite show progress towards the casualty reduction targets for 2010. The thick black lines show the figures that have been recorded so far, the horizontal dashed lines show the baseline averages, and the dotted lines going downwards indicate how the figures would have to fall if the targets for 2010 were to be achieved by means of a constant percentage reduction in each year. The method of deriving these 'target lines' is described at the end of this section.

With this method, the target lines imply the following reductions from the 1994-98 baselines by the year 2000:

	Killed or seriously injured:	13.6%
	Child killed or seriously injured:	18.0%
	Slight casualty rate (per 100m veh-km)	3.0%

Therefore any falls which are greater than these suggest more rapid progress than the relevant indicative target line.

Main points:

• There were 3,880 people killed or seriously injured in 2000, 20% (958) below the 1994-98 average of 4,838. The figure for 2000 is below the relevant indicative target line, and therefore the reduction so far has been greater than would be needed to achieve the 2010 target fall of 40% by means of a constant annual percentage reduction.
• 561 children were killed or seriously injured in 2000, 33% (281) below the 1994-98 average of 842. The figure for 2000 is also below the relevant indicative target line, representing rapid progress towards the 2010 target of a 50% reduction.
• The slight casualty rate of 38.4 casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres in 2000 was 7% below the 1994-98 baseline average of 41.3. As this is below the relevant indicative target line, there has been good progress towards the 2010 target of a 10% reduction.

Killed or seriously injured casualties

As noted above, the relevant indicative "target line" figure for 2000 is 13.6% below the 1994-98 baseline average. The top part of Table G shows that, in 2000, the numbers of killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties for most modes of transport were well below this target line, with falls ranging from 19% for bus/coach KSI casualties to 30% for both pedal cycle and goods vehicle KSI casualties.

Table G

Fatal and serious casualties by mode of transport

	Pedestrian	Pedal cycle	Motor cycle	Car	Bus/coach	Goods1	Other2	All road users
1994-98 ave	1,376	249	355	2,501	96	172	89	4,838
1994	1,647	316	353	2,804	150	211	90	5,571
1995	1,587	292	395	2,653	105	211	96	5,339
1996	1,279	216	300	2,293	96	137	77	4,398
1997	1,211	210	358	2,365	55	136	89	4,424
1998	1,156	210	371	2,389	76	163	91	4,456
1999	1,143	189	431	2,000	83	144	81	4,071
2000	995	175	472	1,973	78	120	67	3,880
Percent changes:
2000 on 1999	-13	-7	10	-1	-6	-17	-17	-5
2000 on 94-98 ave	-28	-30	33	-21	-19	-30	-24	-20
Child fatal and serious casualties by mode of transport
	Pedestrian	Pedal cycle	Motor cycle	Car	Bus/coach	Goods1	Other2	All road users
1994-98 ave	562	100	6	145	11	8	10	842
1994	674	144	6	161	24	12	8	1,029
1995	638	113	7	153	9	13	17	950
1996	540	100	4	118	15	3	10	790
1997	505	78	4	138	3	7	10	745
1998	455	64	8	153	6	6	6	698
1999	430	69	5	108	2	2	9	625
2000	379	65	7	94	7	4	5	561
Percent changes3:
2000 on 1999	-12	-6	n/a	-13	n/a	n/a	n/a	-10
2000 on 94-98 ave	-33	-35	n/a	-35	n/a	n/a	n/a	-33
Slight casualties by mode of transport
	Pedestrian	Pedal cycle	Motor cycle	Car	Bus/coach	Goods1	Other2	All road users	Traffic4	Slight casualty rate
								numbers	mill veh-km	per 100 mill veh-km
1994-98 ave	3,009	1,034	580	10,860	912	583	501	17,478	42,364	41.30
1994	3,083	1,068	577	10,123	1,084	669	398	17,002	..	..
1995	3,048	1,031	576	10,321	802	579	498	16,855	..	..
1996	3,047	1,081	550	10,740	902	499	499	17,318	..	..
1997	2,944	1,062	590	11,669	886	525	529	18,205	..	..
1998	2,922	930	605	11,445	886	643	580	18,011	42,775	42.11
1999	2,620	828	594	10,902	840	609	534	16,927	43,338	39.06
2000	2,600	704	654	10,645	848	538	582	16,571	43,208	38.35
Percent changes:
2000 on 1999	-1	-15	10	-2	1	-12	9	-2	0	-2
2000 on 94-98 ave	-14	-32	13	-2	-7	-8	16	-5	2	-7

1. Light goods vehicles and heavy goods vehicles.
2. Taxis, minibuses and other modes of transport
3. A percentage change is not shown if the baseline figure is small.
4. There are no reliable estimates of the volume of traffic on minor roads in Scotland for individual years prior to 1998, because the method that was used then to estimate total traffic volumes was designed only to produce reliable estimates for Great Britain as a whole. The Scottish components of the traffic estimates for Great Britain for each of the years have been used to produce the estimated annual average for Scotland for 1994 to 1998.

About half of all the 3,880 KSI casualties in 2000 were car users. The total of 1,973 car KSI casualties in 2000 was 21% below the 1994-98 baseline average of 2,501, and therefore better than the indicative target line reduction. There were 995 pedestrian KSI casualties in 2000, 28% fewer than the annual average of 1,376 for the period 1994-98. However, the number of motorcycle KSI casualties in 2000 was 472, an increase of 33% (117) from the 1994-98 average: this was the only category of road user for which the figure in 2000 was above the indicative target line. There were 175 pedal cycle KSI casualties, 30% below the 1994-98 average. The numbers of KSI casualties were smaller for each of the remaining categories of road user (bus/coach, goods vehicle, and others).

Child killed or seriously injured casualties

The indicative target line figure for 2000 is 18% below the 1994-98 average. The middle part of Table G shows that, in 2000, the figures for all the main categories of child road user were below the relevant indicative target lines, with falls of about a third in each case.

Over two-thirds of the 561 child killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties in 2000 were pedestrians. The number of child pedestrian KSI casualties in 2000 was 379, 183 (33%) below the 1994-98 average of 562, and therefore better than the indicative target line reduction. There were 94 child car KSI casualties in 2000, a fall of 51 (35%) from the 1994-98 average of 145. Child pedal cycle KSI casualties in 2000 were also below the indicative target line: there were 65, a reduction of 35% from the 1994-98 average of 100. There are few child KSI casualties for other modes of transport, so small fluctuations in their numbers can cause apparently large percentage changes from the 1994-98 baseline average levels.

Slightly injured casualties, and the slight casualty rate per 100 million vehicle kilometres

By 2000, the indicative target line has a reduction of 3.0% in the slight casualty rate. Because of the limited availability of detailed reliable road traffic estimates for Scotland, the bottom part of Table G shows the numbers of slight casualties (rather than slight casualty rates) for various categories of road user. The table also shows the overall total volume of traffic and the overall slight casualty rate, both of which are only available on an annual basis with effect from 1998. Most of the road user categories had percentage falls in their numbers of slight casualties that were better than that of the slight casualty rate's indicative target line.

Almost two-thirds of slight casualties in 2000 were car users. The total number of car user slight casualties in 2000 was 10,645, 2% below the 1994-98 average of 10,860, and therefore not as good as the slight casualty rate's indicative target line fall of 3.0%. There were 2,600 slight pedestrian casualties 14% less than the 1994-98 average of 3,009, a reduction much better than that of the indicative target line for the slight casualty rate. Bus and coach user slight casualties totalled 848 in 2000, 7% fewer than the 1994-98 average, and the number of pedal cyclist slight casualties (704) was 32% below the baseline average. However, there were rises in motorcyclist slight casualties (654 in 2000, 13% above the 1994-98 average) and in "other road user" slight casualties (582: 16% more than the baseline average).

Assessing progress towards the casualty reduction targets

The indicative target lines shown in Figure 4

One way of assessing progress towards the targets is to compare actual casualty numbers in each year with an indicative line that starts at the baseline figure in 1996 and falls, by a constant percentage reduction in each subsequent year, to the target for 2010. This is the approach adopted by the GB Road Safety Advisory Panel. The indicative line starts at the baseline figure in 1996 because that is the middle year of the 'baseline' period. It should be

noted that this approach differs from that used in "Road Accidents Scotland" to show progress towards the target for 2000: then, the indicative line started at the actual number of casualties in 1987, as that was the year in which the target was adopted. Other approaches could have been used: there are many ways of producing lines that indicate how casualty numbers might fall fairly steadily to the targets for 2010.

The method adopted to produce the indicative target lines shown in Figure 4 involves a constant percentage reduction in each year after 1996. The resulting indicative target lines represent the percentages of the baseline averages which are shown in the table below. They are not straight lines, because of the "compounding over the years" effect of constant annual percentage reductions (to two decimal places, the falls are: 3.58% p.a. for killed or seriously injured casualties; 4.83% p.a. for child killed or seriously injured casualties; and 0.75% p.a. for the slight casualty rate).

	Killed or Seriously Injured		Children Killed or Seriously Injured		Slight casualty rate(per 100 million vkm)
	% of baseline	% reduction from baseline	% of baseline	% reduction from baseline	% of baseline	% reduction from baseline
1996	100.0%		100.0%		100.0%
1997	96.4%	3.6%	95.2%	4.8%	99.3%	0.7%
1998	93.0%	7.0%	90.6%	9.4%	98.5%	1.5%
1999	89.6%	10.4%	86.2%	13.8%	97.8%	2.2%
2000	86.4%	13.6%	82.0%	18.0%	97.0%	3.0%
2001	83.3%	16.7%	78.1%	21.9%	96.3%	3.7%
2002	80.3%	19.7%	74.3%	25.7%	95.6%	4.4%
2003	77.5%	22.5%	70.7%	29.3%	94.9%	5.1%
2004	74.7%	25.3%	67.3%	32.7%	94.2%	5.8%
2005	72.0%	28.0%	64.0%	36.0%	93.5%	6.5%
2006	69.4%	30.6%	61.0%	39.0%	92.8%	7.2%
2007	66.9%	33.1%	58.0%	42.0%	92.1%	7.9%
2008	64.5%	35.5%	55.2%	44.8%	91.4%	8.6%
2009	62.2%	37.8%	52.5%	47.5%	90.7%	9.3%
2010	60.0%	40.0%	50.0%	50.0%	90.0%	10.0%

Statistics for monitoring progress

Table 44 in the main section of this publication shows the "baseline" figures for each local authority area for the first two targets, along with the corresponding figures for 1999 and 2000.

Further statistics relating to the new targets will appear in subsequent editions of "Road Accidents Scotland". The current edition will be the last to report on progress towards the target for reducing road accident casualties by one-third from the 1981-85 average by the year 2000. "Road Accidents Scotland 2001" will contain more information for monitoring progress towards the 2010 targets, and many of the tables will be revised to include the 1994-98 baseline averages.