Casualties by gender and age
Key Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2020
Casualties by gender and age
Figure 8 shows the number of reported casualties by gender and age. This figure does not account for differences between age groups in the level of exposure to risk; for example, we do control for the number of people in each group with driving licences or for the overall number of people in each age group.
In 2020, male fatalities rose by 2 to 111). Female fatalities fell by 26, 46% (to 31). Fourteen per cent (722) of all casualties were aged 16–22, a fall of 28% on 2019, of which 440 were male and 282 were female.
Figure 8: Number of casualties by gender and age, 2020.
Child Casualties
Casualties under the age of 16 are classified as child casualties. Figure 9 shows that there were 490 child casualties reported in 2020, representing 10% of all casualties (490 out of 4,992) and a decrease of 278 (or 36%) from 2019. Of these, 6 died, four more than in 2019. Three of the children killed in 2020 were pedestrians, two were car passengers and one was a pedal cyclist. The numbers of fatalities are small, so care should be taken when drawing conclusions from year-on-year changes and trends should be looked at over the longer term.
There were 223 child pedestrian casualties recorded in 2020. They accounted for 28% of all pedestrian casualties of all ages (223 out of 799). Of the child pedestrian casualties, 80 were seriously injured (3 died). The number killed was one more than in 2019. In 2020, there were 181 child casualties in cars, 7% of all car user casualties (181 out of 2,742). Of the child casualties in cars, 30 were seriously injured (two died). In 2020, there were 60 child pedal cycle casualties (10% of the total of 599 pedal cycle casualties of all ages) including 24 who were seriously injured, there was one child pedal cyclist killed in 2020, one more than 2019.
Figure 9: Number of child casualties, 2004 – 2020.