Accredited official statistics

Road safety statistics: Recent and planned changes

Published 30 July 2026

1.  Introduction 

This page provides an update on changes to the publication of road casualty data and statistics. It sets out which changes have been implemented since our previous update in May 2026 and outlines planned developments to the publication and dissemination of road casualty statistics over the coming months. 

These changes are intended to improve the timeliness, accessibility and usefulness of the statistics for users, while continuing to support transparency and alignment with user needs. 

We welcome feedback on our publications and future development priorities. Please complete our user feedback survey to help inform future work. 

2.  Recent changes implemented

2.1 Changes alongside final 2025 statistics

The publication of final road casualty statistics has been brought forward from September to July as ‘RRCGB final results’. An additional publication, ‘RRCGB additional analysis’, will be published in September focusing on further analysis, data development and product improvements, with further details given below.

The July publication now forms the main annual release of final STATS19 statistics and includes: 

• the core Reported Road Casualties Great Britain (RRCGB) report, now known as ‘final results’ published in a chapter-based format with each chapter providing a high-level overview of a different area of the statistics

• the majority of data tables and open data downloads, including a new data table RAS0204 with enhanced injury severity data. 

• interactive data tools 

• drink-drive statistics, available as a separate release with data for the previous year

• a new chapter on Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) and targets, aligned with the Department’s road safety strategy 

• factsheets including vulnerable road users (pedestrian, pedal cycle, motorcycle, e-scooter), deprivation, older and younger drivers and work- related collisions, providing more detail on topical areas

As part of the publication of the 2025 statistics, we have implemented changes highlighted in May, including:

• changes to how local authority figures are presented in data tables, using current boundaries for historic years to show a consistent time series

• only showing national-level KSI figures after adjustments for changes in severity reporting in the data tables, to focus on what we believe presents the most robust time series

• reducing duplication in casualty rates, showing these only on a per mile basis (and not per kilometre)

Any comments on these changes from users are welcome, and we will keep the content of our publications under review.

2.2  Drink drive statistics 

Alongside the publication of the 2024 drink-drive statistics, we implemented a number of changes following user feedback received in 2025. These are set out in section 2.4 of the publication and include ceasing to collect some of the less used elements of the statistics to reduce burdens on data providers.

Feedback on these changes can be sent using the contact details at the bottom of the page, or via our feedback survey. 

2.3  Drug-drive development 

We have published updated development statistics on drug-drive collisions, including data for 2024. This continues our programme of work to explore the development of robust statistics on collisions involving drug driving. Our longer-term ambition remains to assess whether statistics equivalent to those currently produced for drink-drive collisions can be developed, subject to data quality and coverage.  

3.  Forthcoming changes: September 2026 additional analysis release 

The September 2026 release will focus on additional analysis and product development, rather than headline road casualty statistics. 

Subject to analytical readiness, resource availability and user priorities, this may include: 

Main publication products:

• updating casualty rates in the chapters using the latest National Travel Survey (NTS) data 

• improvements to presentation and accessibility across publication chapters, based on any feedback following the July publication

Data tables and open data: 

• updating casualty rates in tables to include the latest NTS data 

• updating RAS04001 with the latest statistics on the average and total values of prevention statistics, which also require NTS data. 

• publication of updated rates by transport mode (RAS0203)

• potential revisions to road safety factor tables (RAS07) to improve the presentation of data recorded directly as Road Safety Factors and data converted from previous Contributory Factors, if further information from reporting forces is available 

• improving the classification of some vehicle types and weights, including how heavier electric goods vehicles (between 3.5 and 4.25 tonnes) are categorised 

Factsheets and ad-hoc reports: 

• a report on 100 years of STATS19 data 

• a new factsheet covering child casualties 

• updates to existing factsheets, including those on older and younger drivers, deprivation, driving for work and the fatal four behaviours

• exploration of methods for analysing responsible parties within collisions, based on road safety

Interactive data tools: 

We intend to continue developing our interactive data tools. This may include enhancements to Safety Performance Indicator (SPI) reporting, including the provision of sub-national breakdowns. 

Data quality, methodology and guidance: 

We also intend to continue improving the quality and consistency of published data, including: 

• further work linking STATS19 with other datasets, including hospital data and death registration data, to better understand the completeness and quality of reported road casualty data 

• updated analysis of the impacts of the 2024 STATS19 specification 

• further analysis of the impact of online collision reporting on road casualty statistics 

• an overview of work in progress to snap collisions to a road network, in order to enhance the road-related variables available for validation and analysis of STATS19 data

The precise scope and timing of these developments will depend on analytical readiness and available resources, and we welcome any suggestions from users on priorities, or other areas to consider. 

4.  Planned future changes: autumn 2026 and beyond

4.1  Monthly provisional data reporting 

From November 2026, we intend to trial a monthly publication cycle to provide more timely information on trends in reported road collisions and casualties. This mirrors the approach used in London, and in Scotland, where road casualty and collision dashboards are updated each month based on provisional data.

Initially, these outputs will focus on high-level trends using provisional data, for forces that are able to supply it in a sufficiently timely way. We anticipate that monthly data will cover at least 90% of the data for GB with a 5-month lag, and will provide sufficient metadata to allow users to assess data completeness.

Publishing the available data monthly will provide the most recently available data to users where it exists, improving transparency. However, more detailed analysis, including Safety Performance Indicators and target monitoring, will continue to be based on final validated data ensuring these are based on the highest quality data. 

Subject to user feedback and evaluation of the trial, these monthly publications could in future replace the current provisional and mid-year releases. We welcome user feedback on these plans, via our feedback survey.

4.2 Approach to data revisions

Road casualty statistics are not usually revised after the final figures are published. However, we have received feedback from several local authorities suggesting that there are issues with historic data, and so we are considering the merits of making a one-off revision to data for historic years.

Making a revision of this nature would have the benefit of better aligning national and local datasets in some areas , but would require additional resource as well as impacting the previously published figures. It would be unlikely that any changes would materially affect the national patterns and trends shown.

We would welcome feedback from users as to whether they would support a one-off revision of this nature, or would prefer the data to remain unchanged, and would be happy to discuss further with anyone interested.

4.3 Approach to suicides included in road casualty statistics

Suicides should be excluded from STATS19 data according to the guidance set out in STATS20, where this is confirmed by a coroner. Where an inquest has not taken place before the statistics are finalised, suspected suicides should be presumed as RTCs.
However, this means that, in such cases, and in other cases where forces do not update records following an inquest, the published road deaths totals may include some cases which subsequently turn out to be ruled as suicides.

Recent work to compare STATS19 fatality figures with Office for National Statistics death registrations has helped us to qualify this figure as potentially up to 50 fatalities per year.

Our proposed approach for the future is to continue this linkage work, and where it becomes apparent that a record would have fallen outside the scope of STATS19, add a flag to the data to indicate this. That would allow users of the statistics to identify the extent to which the figures may differ if further information had been available at the time of finalising the data, without requiring changes to the published figures.

We welcome any comments from users on this approach, or alternative suggestions for handling the treatment of such cases within the casualty data.

4.4  Future development work 

Beyond 2026, we will continue to explore opportunities to improve road casualty statistics, including: 

• analysis of vehicle weight and size 

• approaches to significance testing for STATS19-based statistics 

• continued development of linked datasets and enhanced road safety analysis 

We welcome feedback from users at any time to help inform priorities for future developments. Please complete our user feedback survey or contact the road safety statistics team at roadacc.stats@dft.gov.uk.