Supporting information
Sources of the data
The figures in this bulletin were compiled from Stats19 statistical returns made by Police Scotland. These returns cover all collisions in which a vehicle is involved that occur on roads (including footways) and that result in personal injury. Only injury collisions reported to the police are included. The vehicle(s) involved in the collision need not be moving, and need not be in collision—for example, the returns include collisions involving people alighting from buses. Damage-only collisions, in which no people are injured, are not included in these statistics.
There could be many non-fatal injury collisions which are not reported to the police, and as a result these statistics are expected to undercount the true number of road casualties.
Stats 19 forms and guidance are available on the Department for Transport website.
Provisional data
Data used in this publication were extracted from Transport Scotland’s reported road collision statistical database in May 2025. The figures published here are marked as provisional, as late returns and any further amendments will be included in the final figures published in Reported Road Casualties Scotland in October and in figures included in later years’ publications.
Revisions to fatality figures for 2019-2023
Introduction
The figures within our reported road casualties publications are routinely subject to change as late records or late corrections are incorporated.
This publication incorporates more significant revisions than usual to fatalities figures for previous years.
These revisions are a the result of a review process undertaken by Police Scotland and Transport Scotland to reconcile figures reported in official statistics publications with those used internally within Police Scotland and with operational partners to monitor fatalities on a weekly basis.
Background
Information on injury road collisions and the resultant casualties are collected by Police Scotland, in part, for the purposes of inclusion in official statistics. The information collected for official statistics is known as the Stats19 data collection and is recorded on a system owned by the Department for Transport known as CRASH. Police Scotland follow standardised, GB-wide guidelines setting out the types of collisions and casualties that should be included in the Stats19 data collection and the range of information that should be collected for these collisions.
Police Scotland also have their own separate administrative processes for tracking and managing road casualties. This includes maintaining a near real-time log of road fatalities, which is updated and shared with operational partners on a weekly basis.
It recently became apparent that the number of fatalities recorded within Police Scotland’s operational monitoring log for calendar year 2023 was lower than the figure reported within Transport Scotland’s official statistics publication.
Review exercise
In response to this difference, Police Scotland and Transport Scotland have undertaken an exercise to understand the differences between the number of fatalities recorded for Stats19 purposes and the number of fatalities being recorded within the fatalities log used for operational monitoring.
This process involved reviewing each fatal collision present on either the Stats19 dataset or the fatalities log, and consulting with the original Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) to confirm the details of the collision. This exercise was conducted for each fatal collision which occurred from Police Scotland’s introduction of CRASH onwards (mid 2019).
The review process highlighted a number of expected differences between the two sets of figures. There are explicit guidelines for what constitutes a fatality for the purposes of the Stats19 data collection, and this may be different from a more general definition of a road fatality. For example, stats19 excludes fatalities from collisions that do not take place on the public road network (e.g. within car parks) and excludes fatalities that die more than 30 days after the collision. Both these types of fatality might reasonably be included in the operational fatality log, which takes a broader definition of a road fatality.
The process also showed differences between the two sets of figures relating to fatalities which were initially recorded as being the result of a road collision, but were then subsequently identified as being to the result of a medical episode, suicide, or physical assault. These types of fatalities should not be included within Stats19 dataset, but a number were.
Typically, SIOs within Police Scotland add fatalities to CRASH on the day of the collision or shortly thereafter. This provides the benefit of prompt completion on the basis of contemporary information. Subsequent investigation may reveal that a road collision fatality was the result of a medical episode, suicide, or intentional assault. The final confirmation that a fatality is in one of the above categories may be received some time after the collision.
As one of a number of administrative steps surrounding the collision. This requires SIOs to edit the Stats19 records with this updated information. In a number of cases, the Stats19 data was not updated on the CRASH system with this information, whilst the log that forms the basis for the weekly fatality monitoring was. This formed the major source of difference between the two sets of figures.
Results of the review
The figures within this publication have been updated in line with the information established in the review process. The overall impact of the changes is to lower the number of fatalities and fatal collisions recorded for the years 2019 to 2023.
The changes in the number of fatalities and fatal collisions for individual years are set out in Table 3 and Table 4 below. These compare the revised figures to those published in our most recent previous publication, ‘Reported Road Casualties 2023’.
| Numbers | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previously published fatality numbers | 164 | 141 | 139 | 171 | 155 |
| Revised fatality numbers | 163 | 133 | 127 | 164 | 147 |
| Difference | -1 | -8 | -12 | -7 | -8 |
| Numbers | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previously published fatal collision numbers | 157 | 131 | 134 | 151 | 151 |
| Revised fatal collision numbers | 156 | 123 | 122 | 143 | 143 |
| Difference | -1 | -8 | -12 | -8 | -8 |
As fatalities and fatal collisions are included within measures of total casualties/collisions and ‘fatal and serious’ casualties/collisions, these figures have seen corresponding increases.
Figure 15 shows the revised findings for fatalities for 2019 onwards in the context of the longer term trend, as well as those published within our most recent road casualties publication ‘Reported Road Casualties 2023’. The overall pattern in fatalities for recent years is similar for both previously published figures and revised figures: there was a reduction to all-time lows during the pandemic years, a rise in 2022, before a reduction in 2023.
Process improvements
In response to the results of this review process, Police Scotland and Transport Scotland are introducing a number of additional steps to ensure the continued accuracy of the figures.
These steps include:
- Highlighting and explaining the issues identified through the review process at the annual conference for Police Scotland’s Senior Investigating Officers (SIOs).
- Providing additional guidance to officers on correct recording of medical and suicide incidents on CRASH.
- Ensuring that updates from the Procurator Fiscal regarding contentious fatalities are sent to a central Road Policing staff member as well as individual SIOs, to allow for additional checks that Crash has been correctly updated.
- Introducing additional checks within Police Scotland for completion memos (the document that signifies that a collision investigation is complete, including the updating of relevant CRASH records).
- Introducing an additional check between Police Scotland’s Road Policing team and Transport Scotland prior the finalisation of each set of official statistics.
Approach to evaluating progress against casualty reduction targets within this publication
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 2014-18 and falls, by a constant percentage reduction in each subsequent year, to the target for 2030. This is the approach previously adopted by the GB Road Safety Advisory Panel. The indicative line starts at the baseline figure in 2016 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 2030.
The method adopted to produce the indicative target lines shown in Figures 11, 12, 13 and 14 involves a constant percentage reduction in each year from 2016 to 2030. The resulting indicative target lines represent the percentages of the baseline averages. They are not straight lines, because of the compounding effect of constant annual percentage reductions (to two decimal places, the falls are: 4.83% p.a. for killed and seriously injured to meet the 2030 target. For children killed and seriously injured the fall is 6.34% p.a..
The calculations themselves are contained within the spreadsheet accompanying this publication.
Severity reporting
The classification of the severity of an collision (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 collision occurs. However, if further information becomes available which would alter the classification (for example, if a person dies within 30 days of the collision, as a result of the injuries sustained in the collision) the police change the initial classification of the severity.
From the middle of 2019, Police Scotland have used the CRASH system for recording severity details of collisions. Table 4 lists the options for determining how severe an injury is. The introduction of CRASH means that the severity of injuries is recorded more accurately than before and has led to an increase in the recorded number of serious injuries. Figures recorded from 2019 onwards are therefore not directly comparable with those recorded prior to the introduction of CRASH. The adjustment methodology discussed in the Introduction is an attempt to account for this and provide comparable figures.
| Injury in CRASH | Detailed severity | Severity classification |
|---|---|---|
| Deceased | Killed | Killed |
| Broken neck or back | Very Serious | Serious |
| Severe head injury, unconscious | Very Serious | Serious |
| Severe chest injury, any difficulty breathing | Very Serious | Serious |
| Internal injuries | Very Serious | Serious |
| Multiple severe injuries, unconscious | Very Serious | Serious |
| Loss of arm or leg (or part) | Moderately Serious | Serious |
| Fractured pelvis or upper leg | Moderately Serious | Serious |
| Other chest injury (not bruising) | Moderately Serious | Serious |
| Deep penetrating wound | Moderately Serious | Serious |
| Multiple severe injuries, conscious | Moderately Serious | Serious |
| Fractured lower leg / ankle / foot | Less Serious | Serious |
| Fractured arm / collarbone / hand | Less Serious | Serious |
| Deep cuts / lacerations | Less Serious | Serious |
| Other head injury | Less Serious | Serious |
| Whiplash or neck pain | Slight | Slight |
| Shallow cuts / lacerations / abrasions | Slight | Slight |
| Sprains and strains | Slight | Slight |
| Bruising | Slight | Slight |
| Shock | Slight | Slight |
Before the introduction of CRASH, the police used the following classifications for determining collision severity:
- a fatal injury is one which causes death less than 30 days after the collision;
- a fatal collision is an collision 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 collision, and which is in one (or more) of the following categories:
- an injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an in-patient, or
- 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
- any injury causing death 30 or more days after the collision;
- a serious collision 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 collision 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 collisions.
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 a slight injury in collisions that previously would have taken place at higher speeds and so might previously have resulted in a 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 collisions 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 collisions 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.
Access to data
Almost all of the data collected for this statistical bulletin are available as part of a GB-wide dataset available on data.gov.uk
Further detail be made available on request, subject to consideration of legal and ethical factors. Please contact Transtat@transport.gov.scot for further information.