Comparisons of Scottish figures against those of other countries

Casualty rates: against England & Wales

Historically, killed casualty rates per head of population in Scotland have been above those for England & Wales, whereas the serious and total casualty rate is usually lower in Scotland than in England & Wales. In 2020, Scotland’s casualty rates were 17% higher (killed), 9% lower (serious) and 50% lower (all severities).

Child rates

In 2020, the Scottish rates were 25% higher (serious) than those in England and Wales and 29% lower (all severities). In the case of all casualties this represented an improvement in Scotland’s figures relative to England & Wales (compared with the 2004-08 average).

Due to the relatively small number of fatalities a 5 year average is used for comparison here. In the period 2016-2020, child fatality rates in Scotland were on average 40% higher than England and Wales, however, in three of the five years the rates were lower.

It should be noted that the ratio of the fatality rates for Scotland and for England and Wales can fluctuate markedly from year to year, particularly for the child fatality rates due to the relatively small numbers in Scotland (which may be subject to year-to-year changes which are large in percentage terms). Therefore, subsequent paragraphs do not refer to the fatality rates for children using different modes of transport. In addition, it should be remembered the rates for some other sub-groups may be affected by year-to-year fluctuations: for example, the numbers are relatively small for most categories of child killed and seriously injured casualties in Scotland.

Mode of transport

The casualty rates of car users in Scotland have for many years been substantially higher than those of England & Wales for killed and seriously injured casualties, while for all severities the rate has been much lower. In 2020, Scotland’s car user fatality rate was 43% higher than that of England & Wales, the seriously injured rate was 5% higher and the all severity car user rate was 51% lower. For child car users, the seriously injured rate was 44% higher in Scotland and the all severities rate was 33% less than that of England and Wales.

In 2020, the pedestrian killed rate per thousand was 19% higher in Scotland than England & Wales, and the serious and all severities rates were 1% and 36% lower respectively. The child pedestrian casualty rates in Scotland were higher for killed (97%) and seriously injured (28%) but lower for all severities (14%) compared to those for England & Wales.

Pedal cyclists casualty rates (all ages) in Scotland were substantially lower than in England & Wales in 2020 for seriously injured (25% lower) and for all severities (58% lower). However, the child pedal cycle casualty serious rate was 28% higher and the all severities rate 14% lower in Scotland than in England & Wales. These differences may reflect the fact that, according to the National Travel Survey, on average, people in Scotland do not travel as far by bicycle as people in England and Wales.

Further information about the numbers of casualties in England and Wales, and for Great Britain as a whole, can be found in Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2020 which is published by the Department for Transport.

Road deaths: International comparison 2019 & 2020 (provisional)

Tables G and H refer.

Introduction

This section compares Scotland’s road death rates in 2019 and 2020 (provisional) with the fatality rates of some countries in Western Europe and some developed countries world-wide. The comparisons involve a total of up to 44 countries (including Scotland, and count each of the UK, Great Britain, England, Wales and Northern Ireland as individual countries). The fatality rates were calculated on a per capita basis (the statistics given are rates per million population), and the countries were then listed in order of their fatality rates in Table G sections (a), (b), (c) and (d). In cases where two countries appear to have the same rate, the order takes account of decimal places which are not shown in the tables. A table of car user fatality rates which were calculated on a per motor vehicle basis is no longer shown due to a lack of consistent data.

Tables G and H were provided by the Department for Transport, which obtained the figures for foreign countries from the International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD).

In accordance with the commonly agreed international definition, most countries define a fatality as being due to a road accident if death occurs within 30 days of the accident. However, the official road accident statistics of some countries limit the fatalities to those occurring within shorter periods after the accident. The numbers of deaths, and the death rates, which appear in the IRTAD tables take account of the adjustment factors used by the Economic Commission for Europe and the European Conference of Ministers of Transport to represent standardised 30-day numbers of deaths.

Latest Results

In 2020, Scotland’s provisional overall road death rate of 26 per million population was the eighth lowest of the 42 countries surveyed (counting each of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland as separate countries, but not counting the overall GB and UK figures).

Pedestrians

In 2019, Scotland’s pedestrian fatality rate was 8 per million population. Scotland ranked 22 of the 41 countries for which figures are available (again counting Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland separately, and again not counting the GB and UK figures).

Car Users

When the car user fatality rate is calculated on a per capita basis, Scotland has a car user fatality rate of 14 per million population: the eleventh lowest of 41 countries, again not counting the GB and UK figures.

Age

The fatality rates per head of population for up to 31 countries (including Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland as separate countries, but not counting the overall GB and UK figures) are shown, for each of four broad age-groups, in Table H. Again, the ordering takes account of decimal places not shown in the table. In most cases, Scotland has one of the lowest rates per capita. The Scottish rate is the fourth lowest for casualties aged 0-14. It was the lowest for those aged 15-24, sixth lowest for those aged 25-64 and fifth lowest for 65+ (in each case, not counting the overall GB and UK figures).

International comparisons of road safety are based on road death rates, as this is the only basis for which there is an international standard definition. As indicated above, the OECD IRTAD tables provide comparable figures for each country, after making adjustments to the data for countries which do not collect their figures on the standard basis. One should not try to compare different countries’ overall road accident casualty rates (i.e. the total numbers killed or injured, relative to the population of each country) because there is no internationally-adopted standard definition of an injury road accident. There are considerable differences between countries in the coverage of their injury road accident statistics. For example, many countries count only accidents which result in someone being admitted to hospital – so their figures would not include the kinds of accident which, in Britain, are classified as causing only slight injuries or certain types of serious injury. Because many countries’ definitions of injury road accidents are much narrower than the definition used in the UK, their reported numbers of injury road accidents will appear low relative to ours – so comparing the reported numbers of people injured in road accidents may provide a misleading impression of different countries’ road safety records.

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