Injuries: road traffic injuries

The Transport Scotland publication, Key Reported Road Casualty Statistics Scotland 2011 presents statistics of the numbers of injury road accidents (that is, road accidents in which one or more people are injured or killed) in Scotland, which were reported by the police using the "Stats 19" statistical returns. Details of all road casualty data are in this Excel workbook. Some key statistics from the above publication are illustrated in chart 1 ((view chart)) and presented below, using provisional data for 2011:

  • The total number of casualties in 2011 (killed, serious and slight injuries combined) was 12,763, the lowest number since records began in 1950.
  • The number of people killed in road accidents in Scotland in 2011 was 186, 11% fewer than in 2010 and the lowest figure since current records began.
  • There were 1,873 people recorded as seriously injured in road accidents in 2011, 5% fewer than in 2010. 

The above injury road accident statistics derived from police forces' "Stats 19" returns are not, however, comprehensive. The police can only report details of the accidents of which they are aware. There could be many injury accidents, not reported by the public to the police, which do not appear in the "Stats 19" returns. Key Reported Road Casualty Statistics Scotland 2011, therefore, contains analysis of "Stats 19" statistical returns, compared with figures from some other sources, including road death figures from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) and numbers of emergency admissions to hospital as the result of road traffic accidents. Some of the main conclusions of this analysis are:

  • "Stats 19" figures are a reliable measure of the level of, and trends in, the number of road deaths - they are very similar to NRS figures, but not the same due to definitional differences.
  • "Stats 19" killed and seriously injured (KSI) figures have fallen by 45% between 2001 and 2011, compared with a fall of 39% in hospital admissions due to road traffic accidents.
  • "Stats 19" child killed and severely injured figures have fallen by 61% between 2001 and 2011, compared with a fall of 60% in child hospital admissions due to road traffic accidents.

Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.