Reported number of casualties

Reported number of casualties

Figure 3 shows that in 2020, 142 people were killed in road accidents in Scotland: 24 (14%) less than 2019. Since 1978, there has been a clear, steady, long-term downward trend. More recent years' figures have fluctuated around a less pronounced downward trend. 2020 had the lowest number of fatalities ever recorded and 2017 was the second-lowest with 145 fatalities.

Figure 3: Total number of reported road fatalities, 1950 – 2020.

Figure 4 shows that there were a total of 4,992 casualties (of all severities) reported in 2020: 2,726 (35%) fewer than in 2019 and the lowest number since annual records began in 1950. Between circa 1970 and 1990, the figures fluctuated around a general downward trend, with numbers falling from the short-term peak in 1989 & 1990 (of over 27,000). Since 1998, there has been a consistent reduction, with numbers falling below 12,000 in 2013, which was half the level of the early 1990s.

Figure 4: Number of reported road casualties broken down by severity, 1950 – 2020.

Note: Due to changes in the way casualty severity is recorded, serious and slight figures in 2019 and 2020 are not comparable with previous years.

In 2020, 1,539 people were seriously injured in road accidents. As outlined above, this figure cannot be directly compared to the reported figures for previous years. Figure 5 uses adjusted figures to show how many serious casualties there would have been in previous years if they had been recorded using an injury-based reporting system. On the basis of these adjusted figures, the number of people seriously injured in 2020 decreased by 40% on 2019. Figure 4 shows that the longer-term trend for fatal and serious casualties has generally been downward since the early 1980s.

There were 3,311 people reported as slightly injured in 2020. Once again, this figure cannot be directly compared to the reported figures for previous years. On the basis of the adjusted figures produced by DfT, the number of people slightly injured in road accidents in 2020 decreased by 19% on 2019. Figure 4 shows that the number of slight casualties has shown a clear downward trend since the mid-1990s.

Figure 5: Number of serious road casualties, adjusted and unadjusted, 2004 – 2020.

Source: Department for Transport (DfT). The adjusted figures in this chart are Experimental Statistics, the unadjusted figures are National Statistics. Figures in this chart may not match those reported elsewhere in this publication as Transport Scotland allows changes to be made to data for previous reporting years, and DfT does not.