A total of 191 people died in road accidents last year, 23 more than in 2015.
https://stv.tv/news/scotland/1391194-more-people-killed-and-badly-injured-on-scottish-roads/
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
More people killed and badly injured on Scotland's roads
(25 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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More detail and datasets here:
https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/key-reported-road-casualties-scotland-2016/
https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/key-reported-road-casualties-scotland-2016-dataset/
Posted 6 years ago # -
Comparing year on year figures isn't very useful without greater context. 2015 could have had a significantly below mean accident rate.
Transport Scotland's own below the line spin is:
- 191 fatalities, representing a reduction of 35 per cent on the 2004-2008 baseline.
- 1,693 serious injuries, representing a reduction of 35 per cent on the baseline.
I'm not sure why 2004-2008 is selected but a 4 year sample is far better than one.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Thanks for the source link crowriver,
Fatal casualties:
2004 - 2008 average 292
2012 - 2016 average 1822015 168
It does appear 2015 laid on the safer side of statistical variance.
Maybe improvements are bottoming out. Check back in 2 years?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hmmm:
"There were 789 pedal cyclist casualties recorded in 2016, 147 (19% and a decrease of 10% on 2015) were seriously injured and 8 died (three more than in 2015).There are now more cyclists on the roads which will likely impact on cycling casualty numbers. There was an increase of 41% in pedal cycle traffic in the last ten years, as shown by the DfT traffic estimates published in Scottish Transport Statistics."
Are there more cyclists on the road across Scotland? The 41% increase in cycle traffic refers to the estimated distance cycled and not the number of cyclists or trips made. Transport Scotland figures for cycling to work, education and total trips shows no real increase in cycling.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Are there more cyclists on the road across Scotland? "
I seem to recall that the number has fallen from the 2013-14 peak, as people return to their cars. Driving is certainly increasing.
As ever, Edinburgh is the exception to all of this...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Thought so. These are the Transport Scotland 2015 stats (don;t have the 2016 ones, maybe not out yet?):
(my emphasis)
--Cycling
Distance cycled on all roads is estimated to have decreased from 369 million vehicle kilometres in 2014 to 342 million vehicle kilometres in 2015. [DfT traffic estimates 2015] Traffic estimates indicate only the broad level of traffic, so year-on-year comparisons should be made with caution as they are estimated based on a small cross-section of Scottish roads.
One percent of journeys had cycling as the main mode of transport, a similar proportion to 2014. [Table SUM1 & TD2] The average (mean) cycling journey was 4.7 km in length. [Table TD5a]
Just over two (2.2) percent of adults usually cycle to work, compared to 2.6 percent in 2014. Just over one percent (1.2%) of children cycled to school in 2015. [Tables 7, 15 & SUM1]
When asked why they don’t cycle to work, the main reason given was ‘it’s too far’ (33%) followed by ‘too many cars on the road’ (18%). Sixteen percent don’t cycle because of bad weather and twelve percent said that traffic travelled too fast. This question was not asked in 2015 so data in this paragraph refer to 2014,[Table 26]
---
So, in summary, Transport Scotland are being economical with the truth in their statement about "an increase of 41% in pedal cycle traffic"...
Oh and the stats for motor vehicles are below. In summary, largest number of new vehicle registrations ever; more single occupant vehicles; volume of traffic at its highest level ever...
Posted 6 years ago # -
jeez, any reduction in the numbers cycling regularly is disappointing, but to go from 2.6% down to 2.2% in one year is so deflating.
The "bad weather" excuse shouldn't be there. Bad weather is pretty rare, rare enough that whoever compiles the statistics shouldn't have it as a get-out. Unless what the respondents really mean is "in my mis-informed and unobservant world, it rains an awful, awful lot".
Posted 6 years ago # -
Klaxon - 2004-2008 was selected as the baseline when the targets for 2020 were set in 2009. All of both 2004 and 2008 are included so it is a 5-year average, as are figures for 2012-16.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I notice they have split up the reason/excuse "motorists" into several different categories to make it look like a much smaller problem.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2017 from Transport Scotland now published:
https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/reported-road-casualties-scotland-2017-pdf-version/
Including a highly misleading "fact" sheet:
Note: Use of the word "accident" throughout, as if none of this was preventable.
Posted 5 years ago # -
From the cycling section of the fact sheet:
Top 10 contributory factors in 2017 for
accidents involving at least one cyclist:Cyclist failed to look properly
Failed to judge other person’s
path or speedNote: No mention of "motorist failed to look properly" or "motorist failed..." in collision with cyclist, although from other stats, I believe that it is the motorist at fault 75% of the time.
"Failed to judge other person’s path or speed" could apply to either the cyclist or the motorist, but the way it's written implies the cyclist failed to judge... (and the same is true of the other non-specific-user points)
It appears that only 48% cyclist injuries occurred with another motorised vehicle involved, implying 52% were cyclists just falling off, or colliding with other bikes. It looks like they've conflated all the slight injuries with the killed & seriously injured (KSI), making it look like cyclists mostly just crash on their own. Taking the cycling KSI figures and looking at the other vehicles involved would've been more meaningful.
And victim-blaming classics such as:
Cyclist wearing dark clothing at night
Not display lights at night [sic]
Cyclist entering road from pavement [no mention if pavement is shared-use]
HGV driver deaths fell by 50% ! Again, it seems they've simply compared the figure of 2 deaths in 2007, with 1 death in 2017. Completely meaningless to use such small samples in this way.
What a nonsense!
Posted 5 years ago # -
My take is most cyclists are killed or injured by car drivers.
Shockingly, no stats for which classes of vehicles killed or injured pedestrians. Must be buried in the spreadsheets... (SFX of clicking on spreadsheets)...nope, still can't find anything, maybe they don't exist?
However, interesting snippet: most cyclists are involved in accidents less than 2km from their home address. So take care in the local neighbourhood, and do those longer rides!
Posted 5 years ago # -
Yeah.
Also no mention of pedestrians killed while walking on the pavement, which I believe is disturbingly common.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I'm not impressed with that 'fact' sheet (I'm being polite). Where do these 'contributory factors' come from anyway. I don't remember seeing them in the Stats 19 data - which records only what hit what, where, and what people were injured and how badly... with no record at all of fault/blame/cause. Did I miss something? Is someone in Scotland recording something new that I don't know about?
This seems to be someone misunderstanding the data and turning it into something completely inaccurate and totally misleading as a result. For the top 10 contributory factors in injuries to the most vulnerable road users (broaden this from 'cyclists') to ignore anything caused by any other road user is a complete nonsense.
But the Stats 19 data is often misinterpreted. I just expected more at this level.
And their maps make a rookie mistake. They've laid them out so that the much more numerous 'slight' injury data is allowed to cover the much more significant 'fatal' and 'serious' points. This will actually be hiding many fatal and serious points... creating a very misleading picture. GIS maps of data like this are often hard to get right - they always risk misleading, however skilled the designer - but a mistake like this is pretty much unforgivable I think.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Hard to avoid the suspicion that whoever put the "fact sheet" together wants to give the deliberate impression that cyclists have only themselves to blame for being killed and injured on the roads. Presume that's the impression most ministers, journalists, etc. will get from that, and they are unlikely to probe further into the detailed data sets to check if that impression is correct.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Hope someone is willing to ask some questions and/or explain the problem to people who need to know.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@rbrtwtmn - 'contributory factors' have been collected as part of Stat19 since 2005 but are not usually published at individual accident level. (accident is used as none of these should have been intended - an intentional crash is not an accident)
I wouldn't disagree with much of the rest of your comment (or crowriver's)
The contributory factors are sometimes regarded as the least reliable parts of the stat19 data, and I would not be surprised if they have been misinterpreted here.Posted 5 years ago # -
2018 provisional figures now published.
"In 2018 there were 6 pedal cyclists killed, one more than in 2017 ..."
Posted 4 years ago # -
In better news, there were 638 pedal cycle casualties in 2018 (12% less than 2017)
and:
1,250 pedestrian casualties in 2018 (8% less than 2017); including 33 fatalities (5 fewer than 2017)
The councils that have bothered to implement 20mph limits having some effect?
More depressingly, pedal cycle casualties have only fallen by around 16% on the 2004 - 2008 average, whereas most other modes fell by ~50% over the same period!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Is there any mention of cause of injury? For instance, how many pedestrians were killed / injured by cars vs bikes
Posted 4 years ago # -
@EdinburghCyclist
I can't find any Scottish data on that.
For Britain:-
"Proportionally very few pedestrian casualties involve cyclists. From 2012 to 2016, 2,120 pedestrians were killed by a vehicle in Britain—0.8% of these involved a bicycle, and 66% involved a car. In 2016, 448 pedestrians were killed by a vehicle—3 of these deaths involved a bike, and 289 involved a car."
Almost 26,000 pedestrians were seriously injured by vehicles from 2012 to 2016. 2% of these involved a bike, and 81% involved a car. In 2016, 108 pedestrians were seriously injured by a bicycle, compared to 4,156 by a car.
Source
@neddie
Cycle travel has increased over that period, however, so the incidence of casualty per km will have reduced by more.Posted 4 years ago # -
@Charlethepar
Cycle travel has only increased by 15% over the last 10 years. Therefore not really enough of an increase to explain why cycling casualties only fell by 16% versus ~50% fall for other modes, over the same period.
Posted 4 years ago # -
"Cycle travel has only increased by 15% over the last 10 years. "
And it is still hovering around 2% modal share on average. Except for a few places, like Edinburgh for instance. Indeed Edinburgh is really the only place in Scotland with a relatively high modal share for cycling. Relatively because it's much higher in cities like York and Cambridge...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Scottish data from 2017:
1360 pedestrian casualties, 38 killed, 376 seriously injured.
18 were hit first by a pedal cycle, none were killed, 4 were seriously injured. (9 in Lothian & Borders, 9 in Strathclyde, none recorded elsewhere)
1025 were hit first by a car, 25 were killed, 286 were seriously injured.Posted 4 years ago #
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