Article 1 Casualty Reduction Targets: Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020
Article 1 Casualty Reduction Targets: Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020
Figure 8 Progress towards the 2020 casualty reduction targets
1. Introduction
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 were adopted from 2010.
| 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 outlined in section 1.1, the number of serious and slight casualties cannot be directly compared to previously recorded figures due to changes in severity reporting. Progress against the serious casualty reduction target is therefore based on adjusted figures, produced by the Department for Transport, that show how many slight and serious casualties there would have been in previous years if they had been recorded using an injury-based reporting system.
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.
The four main targets differ to those used previously, in that deaths have been separated out from serious injuries. In recent years the trends for deaths and serious injuries have differed and are therefore worth mentioning separately.
The targets are deliberately challenging, particularly for child deaths as the child fatality rate in Scotland is higher than in England and Wales. The child fatality target itself will be monitored using a 3 year rolling average due to the small numbers of fatalities each year.
To illustrate the reductions necessary the following table shows the adjusted 2004 to 2008 baseline, the latest position as well as the level of casualties inferred by the 2015 milestones and 2020 targets. The 2004-2008 baseline and the 2015 milestone have been calculated on the basis of the adjusted figures produced by the Department for Transport.
| 2004-2008 average | 2019 | 2015 milestone | 2020 target | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| People killed | 292 | 165 | 204 | 175 |
| People seriously injured | 5,296 | 2,611 | 3,018 | 2,385 |
| Children (aged < 16) killed | 15 | 31 | 10 | 8 |
| Children (aged < 16) seriously injured | 684 | 260 | 342 | 239 |
1. 2017-19 average
Charts showing indicative lines of progress are in figure 8. More detail about the calculation of these indicative lines is included in section 5 of this article.
2 Summary of Progress
Due to changes in severity reporting, progress against this target for serious and slight casualties is measured on the basis of adjusted figures provided by the Department for Transport. These figures illustrate how many casualties there would have been in previous years if they had been recorded using an injury-based recording system.
The 2019 figures show:
- 165 people were reported as killed in 2019, 43 per cent (127) below the 2004-2008 average of 292.
- 2,611 people were reported as seriously injured in 2019, 51 per cent (2,685) below the 2004-2008 average of 5,296.
- 3 children were reported as killed in 2019, meaning the average for the 2017-2019 period was 3 a year, this is 83 per cent (12) below the 2004-2008 average of 15.
- 260 children were reported as seriously injured in 2019, 62 per cent (424) below the 2004-2008 average of 684.
- The slight casualty rate of 9.87 casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres in 2019 was 62 per cent below the 2004-2008 baseline average of 26.02.
Figure 8 shows progress towards the casualty reduction targets for 2020.
3 Commentary
Numbers killed
As shown in Table la a reduction of 11.5 per cent compared to the 2015 milestone of 204 was required in 2019 to reach the target. The figure for 2019 is 165 which is 19% below the 2015 milestone figure of 204.
Numbers Seriously Injured (adjusted)
As shown in Table Ia below, a reduction of 17.2 per cent compared to the 2015 milestone of 3,018 was required in 2019 to reach this target. The 2019 figure of 2,611 is 13 per cent greater than this and therefore above the trajectory required to meet the target.
Children killed
The number of child fatalities is relatively small and the average of 3 over the last three years meets the 50 per cent reduction target set for 2020. Table Ib shows the average number of child fatalities for 2017-2019 for each mode (apart from ‘other’) is below the 2004-2008 baseline.
Child pedestrian fatalities have fallen from an average of 6 per year in 2004-2008 to an average of 2 per year in 2017-2019.
Child pedal cycle fatalities have fallen from an average of 2 per year in the baseline period to an average of zero in the last three years. The number of child fatalities as passengers in cars has fallen as well from an average of 6 per year in the baseline period to zero per year in the 2017-2019 period,.
Children seriously injured (adjusted)
As shown in Table Ia below, a reduction of 24.9 per cent compared to the 2015 milestone of 342 was required in 2019 to remain on the trajectory for this target. The 2019 figure of 260 is 24 per cent below the trajectory.
Slightly injured casualties (adjusted)
Because of the limited availability of detailed reliable road traffic estimates for Scotland, Table Ib shows the numbers of slight casualties (rather than slight casualty rates) for categories of road user. The table also shows the overall total volume of traffic and the overall adjusted slight casualty rate.
Table Ib shows that adjusted slight injuries per million vehicle kilometres are 62 per cent below the 2004-2008 average.
The number of slight casualties has fallen compared to the baseline for all modes of transport. The largest reductions are seen for pedestrian, bus / coach (both 60%) and motorcycle (70%). Car users make up just over two-thirds of slight casualties and there has been a reduction of 58% compared to the baseline period. Pedal cycles on the other hand have shown a 33% decrease on the 2004-2008 average.
4. Other statistics for monitoring progress
Table 40 in the main section of this publication shows the baseline figures for each local authority area relating to the targets for the numbers killed (separately for trunk roads, local authority roads and all roads), along with the corresponding figures for each of the past ten years and the latest five years’ averages. Table 42 shows figures for each Police Force division related to all killed and children killed.
5. Assessing progress towards the casualty reduction targets
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 2006 (mid-point of the 2004 to 2008 average) and falls, by a constant percentage reduction in each subsequent year, to the milestone for 2015 and from there to the target for 2020. This is the approach adopted by the GB Road Safety Advisory Panel. 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 8 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% per annum 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 children 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% |
| 2014 | 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% | ||||
| 2018 | 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% |
| Pedestrian | Pedal cycle |
Motor cycle |
Car | Bus/ coach |
Goods1 | Other2 | All road users |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-08 average | 65 | 9 | 42 | 162 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 292 |
| 2012 | 59 | 9 | 21 | 73 | 1 | 13 | - | 176 |
| 2013 | 38 | 13 | 23 | 89 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 172 |
| 2014 | 59 | 8 | 30 | 94 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 203 |
| 2015 | 44 | 5 | 27 | 75 | 1 | 13 | 3 | 168 |
| 2016 | 32 | 8 | 30 | 106 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 191 |
| 2017 | 38 | 5 | 29 | 64 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 145 |
| 2018 | 34 | 6 | 33 | 75 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 161 |
| 2019 | 44 | 10 | 25 | 75 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 165 |
| 15-19 ave | 38 | 7 | 29 | 79 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 166 |
| 2020 target | 39 | 6 | 25 | 97 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 175 |
| Percent changes: | ||||||||
| 2019 on 2018 | 29 | 67 | -24 | - | 50 | 20 | -67 | 2 |
| 2019 on 2004-08 average | -32 | 9 | -40 | -54 | 275 | -48 | -17 | -43 |
| Pedestrian | Pedal cycle |
Motor cycle |
Car | Bus/ coach |
Goods1 | Other2 | All road users |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-08 average | 1,277 | 286 | 599 | 2,700 | 136 | 175 | 122 | 5,296 |
| 2012 | 899 | 360 | 537 | 1,839 | 108 | 135 | 108 | 3,986 |
| 2013 | 805 | 346 | 458 | 1,638 | 92 | 116 | 86 | 3,540 |
| 2014 | 818 | 356 | 502 | 1,576 | 67 | 115 | 76 | 3,510 |
| 2015 | 812 | 341 | 444 | 1,543 | 93 | 119 | 57 | 3,408 |
| 2016 | 796 | 337 | 437 | 1,631 | 84 | 127 | 62 | 3,473 |
| 2017 | 677 | 327 | 410 | 1,395 | 79 | 107 | 69 | 3,063 |
| 2018 | 643 | 302 | 415 | 1,342 | 70 | 110 | 51 | 2,933 |
| 2019 | 604 | 250 | 332 | 1,239 | 41 | 88 | 58 | 2,611 |
| 15-19 ave | 706 | 311 | 408 | 1,430 | 73 | 110 | 59 | 3,098 |
| 2020 target | 575 | 129 | 270 | 1,215 | 61 | 79 | 55 | 2,383 |
| Percent changes: | ||||||||
| 2019 on 2018 | -6 | -17 | -20 | -8 | -41 | -20 | 14 | -11 |
| 2019 on 2004-08 average | -53 | -13 | -45 | -54 | -70 | -50 | -53 | -51 |
| Pedestrian | Pedal cycle |
Motor cycle |
Car | Bus/ coach |
Goods1 | Other2 | All road users |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-08 average | 6 | 2 | 0 | 6 | - | 0 | 0 | 15 |
| 2012 | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 2 |
| 2013 | 5 | 2 | - | 2 | - | - | - | 9 |
| 2014 | 3 | - | - | 4 | - | - | - | 7 |
| 2015 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 4 |
| 2016 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | - | - | - | 12 |
| 2017 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 |
| 2018 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 |
| 15-19 ave | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | - | - | 0 | 6 |
| 2020 target | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | - | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| 17-19 ave | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 |
| Percent changes: | ||||||||
| 17-2019 on 2004-08 average | -67 | -100 | -100 | -100 | - | -100 | 233 | -83 |
| Pedestrian | Pedal cycle |
Motor cycle |
Car | Bus/ coach |
Goods1 | Other2 | All road users |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-08 average | 432 | 71 | 12 | 148 | 10 | 2 | 8 | 684 |
| 2012 | 241 | 48 | 4 | 90 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 396 |
| 2013 | 198 | 38 | 3 | 80 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 331 |
| 2014 | 228 | 35 | 8 | 66 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 348 |
| 2015 | 203 | 28 | 1 | 70 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 310 |
| 2016 | 216 | 21 | 5 | 88 | 4 | 4 | - | 339 |
| 2017 | 191 | 27 | 4 | 68 | 12 | 4 | 2 | 309 |
| 2018 | 169 | 30 | 2 | 66 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 271 |
| 2019 | 160 | 32 | 3 | 61 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 260 |
| 15-19 ave | 188 | 28 | 3 | 71 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 298 |
| 2020 target | 151 | 25 | 4 | 52 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 239 |
| Percent changes: | ||||||||
| 2019 on 2018 | -5 | 7 | 50 | -8 | 100 | - | 100 | -4 |
| 2019 on 2004-08 average | -63 | -55 | -75 | -59 | -81 | -55 | -74 | -62 |
| Pedestrian | Pedal cycle |
Motor cycle |
Car | Bus/ coach |
Goods1 | Other2 | All road users |
Traffic | Slight casualty rate |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| numbers | mill veh-km | per 100 mill veh-km | ||||||||
| 2004-08 average | 1,495 | 455 | 398 | 7,673 | 601 | 404 | 355 | 11,382 | 43,736 | 26.02 |
| 2012 | 994 | 528 | 305 | 5,664 | 330 | 339 | 252 | 8,412 | 43,549 | 19.32 |
| 2013 | 889 | 523 | 291 | 5,224 | 300 | 317 | 208 | 7,753 | 43,840 | 17.68 |
| 2014 | 863 | 525 | 288 | 5,075 | 220 | 328 | 218 | 7,517 | 44,839 | 16.76 |
| 2015 | 829 | 449 | 264 | 5,076 | 238 | 337 | 169 | 7,363 | 45,374 | 16.23 |
| 2016 | 825 | 444 | 242 | 4,942 | 214 | 338 | 194 | 7,200 | 46,459 | 15.50 |
| 2017 | 637 | 387 | 176 | 4,200 | 273 | 290 | 183 | 6,147 | 47,986 | 12.81 |
| 2018 | 569 | 328 | 191 | 3,641 | 157 | 274 | 122 | 5,282 | 48,137 | 10.97 |
| 2019 | 593 | 307 | 161 | 3,234 | 151 | 199 | 161 | 4,807 | 48,714 | 9.87 |
| 15-19 ave | 691 | 383 | 207 | 4,219 | 207 | 288 | 166 | 6,160 | 47,334 | 13.01 |
| 2020 target | 23.42 | |||||||||
| Percent changes: | ||||||||||
| 2019 on 2018 | 4 | -6 | -16 | -11 | -4 | -27 | 32 | -9 | 1 | -10 |
| 2019 on 2004-08 average | -60 | -33 | -60 | -58 | -75 | -51 | -55 | -58 | 11 | -62 |
1. Light goods vehicles and heavy goods vehicles.
2. Taxis, minibuses and other modes of transport