FOI 299/25

REQUEST 

1. Please provide the total number of recorded road traffic accidents in the UK (Scotland, England, Wales, North Ireland) from January 2024 to February 2025. Additionally, identify which month had the highest number of incidents.

1. Break down these accidents by severity, categorising them into fatal, serious, and slight injuries.
2. Provide a dataset detailing the number of road traffic accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, and motorcyclists during this period.
3. What were the leading causes of road traffic accidents in the given timeframe? Please include a statistical breakdown by category, such as speeding, drink-driving, reckless driving, poor weather conditions, vehicle defects, and driver distraction (e.g., mobile phone use).
4. How many of these accidents involved drivers aged under 25 years old or over 70 years old? If available, please indicate any trends or patterns related to these age groups.
5. Identify the most hazardous roads and junctions based on accident frequency during this period, along with the total number of incidents recorded at each location.
6. Provide a ranked list of UK cities and regions with the highest number of traffic accidents, specifying the recorded figures for each.

CLARIFICATION: 21.03.2025

Yes, please local data for South Wales Police will be very helfpul.

RESPONSE

We consulted with our Motoring Unit who have provided the following information regarding your request. Please note this information covers the South Wales Police force area only.

Question 1

There were 6,811 Road Traffic Accidents reported to South Wales Police in the time frame specified. This is a combination of personal injury accidents, damage only, non-injury, fail to stop and hit and runs.

The highest number of accidents reported was for January 2024 with 567 incidents.

Question 2

Question 3-7

South Wales Police provide all personal injury road traffic accident statistics to the Welsh Government. They in turn after analysing and breaking down all the data pass on all the information to the Department for Transport who then publish the results.

Due to the large amount data for all personal injury accidents, South Wales Police send over the data in bulk to the Welsh Government and their analysts categorise them into speeds, road locations, pedestrians, cyclists, injuries, age, weather conditions, circumstances etc.

Under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, the Department for Transport in Wales would have this information readily available, therefore you may wish to submit this part of your request to them. Please see the below link:

Accessing information from any part of DfT - GOV.UK