11. Sources and definitions

11. Sources and definitions

11.1 The sources of the data

The figures in this bulletin were compiled from the "Stats 19" statistical returns made by police forces. These cover all accidents in which a vehicle is involved that occur on roads (including footways) and result in personal injury, if they become known to the police. As noted in section 2.2, there could be many non-fatal injury accidents which are not reported by the public to the police, and are therefore not counted in these statistics because the police can only include in their returns details of the accidents of which they are aware. More information about this is given in Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2010, in the section entitled Estimating under-counting of Road Casualties in Scotland. The vehicle(s) involved in the accident need not be moving, and need not be in collision - for example, the returns include accidents involving people alighting from buses. Damage only accidents (i.e. accidents which do not involve personal injury) are not included in these statistics.

Data used in this publication were extracted from Transport Scotland's reported road accident statistical database in May 2017. The figures published here are marked as provisional as late returns and amendments will be included in the final figures published in Reported Road Casualties Scotland in October and in figures included in later years publications.

The differences between the provisional and final numbers are likely to be small. The figures for previous years are included in the table below. Over the last four years, there was a difference of 4 more people killed in 2012 between the June and October publications. The 3 year average figure published in Reported Road Casualties Scotland has been 0.5% higher for Serious and 0.4% higher for Slight casualties and all severities. Differences may be larger for some subsets of the data, for example the tables by mode, so small changes should be treated with caution.

Year	KRRC (June)	RRCS (October)	Difference (no.)	Difference (% of June)
Killed
2001	347	347	0
2002	304	305
2003	332	331	-1	-0.3%
2004	307	306	-1	-0.3%
2005	286	286	0
2006	314	314	0
2007	282	281	-1	-0.4%
2008	272	270	-2	-0.7%
2009	216	216	0
2010	208	208	0
2011	186	186	0
2012	170	174	4	2.4%
2013	172	172	0
2014	200	200	0
2015	162	168	6	3.7%
10YA	247	248	0.0
5YA	178	180	0.8	0.4%
3YA	178	180	1.3	0.7%
Serious
2001	3,405	3,406	1	0.0%
2002	3,204	3,213
2003	2,931	2,940	9	0.3%
2004	2,712	2,742	30	1.1%
2005	2,594	2,652	58	2.2%
2006	2,594	2,625	31	1.2%
2007	2,316	2,382	66	2.8%
2008	2,535	2,568	33	1.3%
2009	2,269	2,269	0
2010	1,960	1,964	4	0.2%
2011	1,873	1,875	2	0.1%
2012	1,959	1,974	15	0.8%
2013	1,667	1,672	5	0.3%
2014	1,694	1,699	5	0.3%
2015	1,597	1,596	-1	-0.1%
10YA	2,306	2,328	24.9	1.1%
5YA	1,758	1,763	6.2	0.4%
3YA	1,653	1,656	8.3	0.5%
Slight
2001	16,137	16,141	4	0.0%
2002	15,730	15,730
2003	15,406	15,435	29	0.2%
2004	15,227	15,357	130	0.9%
2005	14,912	14,883	-29	-0.2%
2006	14,169	14,328	159	1.1%
2007	13,465	13,550	85	0.6%
2008	12,756	12,738	-18	-0.1%
2009	12,528	12,545	17	0.1%
2010	11,156	11,162	6	0.1%
2011	10,704	10,709	5	0.0%
2012	10,446	10,528	82	0.8%
2013	9,654	9,654	0
2014	9,346	9,369	23	0.2%
2015	9,191	9,204	13	0.1%
10YA	12,833	12,867	46.0	0.4%
5YA	9,868	9,893	23.2	0.2%
3YA	9,397	9,409	35.0	0.4%
All Severities
2001	19,889	19,894	5	0.0%
2002	19,238	19,248
2003	18,669	18,706	37	0.2%
2004	18,246	18,405	159	0.9%
2005	17,792	17,821	29	0.2%
2006	17,077	17,267	190	1.1%
2007	16,063	16,213	150	0.9%
2008	15,563	15,576	13	0.1%
2009	15,013	15,030	17	0.1%
2010	13,324	13,334	10	0.1%
2011	12,763	12,770	7	0.1%
2012	12,575	12,676	101	0.8%
2013	11,493	11,498	5	0.0%
2014	11,240	11,268	28	0.2%
2015	10,950	10,968	18	0.2%
10YA	15,385	15,442	70.9	0.5%
5YA	11,804	11,836	30.2	0.3%
3YA	11,228	11,245	44.7	0.4%

11.3 The definition of "severity" used in the Road Accident statistics

The classification of the severity of an accident (as "fatal", "serious" or "slight") is determined by the severity of the injury to the most severely injured casualty. The police usually record this information soon after the accident occurs. However, if further information becomes available which would alter the classification (for example, if a person dies within 30 days of the accident, as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident) the police change the initial classification of the severity.

For the purposes of the Road Accidents statistical returns:

• a fatal injury is one which causes death less than 30 days after the accident;
• a fatal accident is an accident in which at least one person is fatally injured;
• a serious injury is one which does not cause death less than 30 days after the accident, and which is in one (or more) of the following categories:

(a) an injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an in-patient

or (b) any of the following injuries (whether or not the person is detained in hospital):fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, severe cuts and lacerations, severe general shock requiring treatment

or (c) any injury causing death 30 or more days after the accident;

• a serious accident is one in which at least one person is seriously injured, but no-one suffers a fatal injury;
• a "slight" injury is any injury which is neither "fatal" nor "serious" - for example, a sprain, bruise or cut which is not judged to be severe, or slight shock requiring roadside attention;
• a "slight" accident is one in which at least one person suffers "slight" injuries, but no-one is seriously injured, or fatally injured.

Over the years, improvements in vehicle design, and the provision and use of additional safety features, together with changes in the law (e.g. on the fitting and wearing of seat belts), will all have helped to reduce the severity of the injuries suffered in some accidents.

Road safety measures should also have reduced the levels of injuries sustained. For example, if traffic calming schemes reduce average speeds, people may suffer only "slight injury" in collisions that previously would have taken place at higher speeds and so might previously have resulted in "serious injury".

However, it is also possible that some of the changes shown in the statistics of "serious injuries" and "slight injuries" may be due to changes in administrative practices, which may have altered the proportion of accidents categorised as "serious". For example, the distinction between "serious" and "slight" injuries could be affected by factors such as changes in hospitals' admission policies. All else being equal, the number of "serious injury" cases would rise, and the number of "slight injury" cases would fall, if it became standard procedure for a hospital to keep in overnight, for precautionary reasons, casualties with a particular type of injury.

The increase in the number of "serious" injury accidents in 1994 was partly attributed to a change in the health boards' policies in admitting more child casualties for overnight observation, which in turn changed the classification of many injuries from "slight" to "serious". The number of child casualties recorded as having serious injuries in 1994 was 35 per cent higher than in the previous year. There could also be changes in hospitals' procedures that would reduce the numbers of "serious injury" cases.

In addition, there is anecdotal evidence that changes in procedures for assigning severity codes may affect the categorisation of injuries. For example, different severity codes might be assigned by a police officer who was at the scene of an accident and by a clerk who bases the code on a police officer's written description of the accident.

Built-up roads: accidents which occur on "built-up" roads are those which occur on roads which have speed limits of up to 40 miles per hour (ignoring temporary speed limits on roads for which the normal speed limit is over 40 mph).

Children: people under 16 years old.

Pedestrians: includes people riding toy cycles on the footway, people pushing bicycles, occupants of prams or wheelchairs, and people who alight safely from vehicles and are subsequently injured.

Scotland's Road Safety Framework was launched in June 2009. It set out the vision for road safety in Scotland, the main priorities and issues and included Scotland-specific targets and milestones which will be adopted from 2010. These targets and milestones are:

Target	2015 milestone % reduction	2020 target % reduction
People killed	30%	40%
People seriously injured	43%	55%
Children (aged < 16) killed *	35%	50%
Children (aged < 16) seriously injured	50%	65%

* As numbers are small, a 3 year average is included in the table to smooth out large fluctuations in the numbers.

Each reduction target will be assessed against the 2004/08 average. In addition to the targets a 10 per cent reduction target in the slight casualty rate will continue to be adopted.

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 2004-08 and falls, by a constant percentage reduction in each subsequent year, to the target for 2020. This is the approach adopted by the GB Road Safety Advisory Panel. The indicative line starts at the baseline figure in 2006 as that is the middle year of the baseline period. 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 2020.

The method adopted to produce the indicative target lines shown in Figure 4 involves a constant percentage reduction in each year after 2006 to the 2015 milestone, then a constant percentage reduction between 2015 and 2020. 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: 3.89% p.a. for killed to meet the 2015 milestone and 3.02 between 2015 and 2020. For seriously injured casualties the falls are 6.06% and 4.61%. For child killed 4.67% and 4.37 or seriously injured 7.41% and 6.90.

	Killed		Serious		Child killed		Child serious
	% baseline (milestone from 2015)	% reduction from baseline (milestone)	% baseline (milestone from 2015)	% reduction from baseline (milestone)	% baseline (milestone from 2015)	% reduction from baseline (milestone)	% baseline (milestone from 2015)	% reduction from baseline (milestone)
2006	100%		100%		100%		100%
2007	96.1%	3.9%	93.9%	6.1%	95.3%	4.7%	92.6%	7.4%
2008	92.4%	7.6%	88.3%	11.7%	90.9%	9.1%	85.7%	14.3%
2009	88.8%	11.2%	82.9%	17.1%	86.6%	13.4%	79.4%	20.6%
2010	85.3%	14.7%	77.9%	22.1%	82.6%	17.4%	73.5%	26.5%
2011	82.0%	18.0%	73.2%	26.8%	78.7%	21.3%	68.0%	32.0%
2012	78.8%	21.2%	68.7%	31.3%	75.0%	25.0%	63.0%	37.0%
2013	75.8%	24.2%	64.6%	35.4%	71.5%	28.5%	58.3%	41.7%
2014	72.8%	27.2%	60.7%	39.3%	68.2%	31.8%	54.0%	46.0%
2015	70.0%	30.0%	57.0%	43.0%	65.0%	35.0%	50.0%	50.0%
2015	100%		100%		100%		100%
2016	97.0%	3.0%	95.4%	4.6%	95.6%	4.4%	93.1%	6.9%
2017	94.1%	5.9%	91.0%	9.0%	91.5%	8.5%	86.7%	13.3%
2018	91.2%	8.8%	86.8%	13.2%	87.5%	12.5%	80.7%	19.3%
2019	88.5%	11.5%	82.8%	17.2%	83.7%	16.3%	75.1%	24.9%
2020	85.8%	14.2%	79.0%	21.0%	80.0%	20.0%	69.9%	30.1%