Road safety factors (previously contributory factors)

According to the current stats19 specification a reporting office attending the scene of a road collision may select up to 6 road safety factors (RSF) (from a list of 35) to assign to that collision. Multiple factors may be listed against any participant or vehicles in the collision.

Each factor falls under one of 6 categories:

• Behaviour or inexperience
• Distraction or impairment
  Non-motorised road users or PPT (pedestrian, cyclist, horse rider or powered personal transporter)
• Road
• Speed behaviour 
• Vehicles

Figure 15 shows the proportion of injury collisions with at least one RSF recorded that fall into each RSF category. A collision can be assigned multiple factors and therefore the numbers in Figure may sum to more than 100%. The 3 categories with the largest number of collisions were:

• Behaviour or inexperience
• Speed behaviour
• Distraction or impairment

In terms of individual RSFs, the ten RSFs which were recorded for the highest proportion of injury collisions are shown in Figure 16. The RSF recorded in the highest proportion of collisions was ‘Ineffective observation by either the driver, rider or pedestrian’, which was recorded for over half of injury collisions (60%) where RSFs were assigned.

Further information on the collection of road safety factors is available in the Supporting Information section.