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Reported road casualties Great Britain: motorcyclist factsheet 2024

Published 25 September 2025

This factsheet presents trends from 2004 onwards. However, grouped data for years from 2020 to 2024 is used widely in order to allow sufficiently robust analysis by age, sex and other variables

This factsheet gives an overview and key statistics on motorcyclists involved in road collisions in Great Britain as reported by or to the police. This factsheet examines the main trends in collisions involving motorcyclists and the casualties involved.

Motorcyclists are one of the vulnerable user groups. They are not protected by a vehicle body in the same way car users are, and tend to be harder for drivers to see on the road. They are, therefore, particularly susceptible to injuries.

Data in this factsheet is from 2004 onwards. Serious and slight injuries have been adjusted to account for changes in the severity reporting systems. More information on the change and adjustment process is available in the severity adjustment guidance.

It should be noted that it has been long known that a considerable percentage of non-fatal casualties are not reported to the police. This should be borne in mind when analysing and interpreting the data.

1. Main findings

Between 2004 and 2024:

• fatalities were down 42% from 585 to 340

• serious injuries (adjusted) decreased by 36%

• motorcycle traffic decreased by 6%

Averaged over the period 2020 to 2024:

• an average of 6 motorcyclists died and 101 were seriously injured (adjusted) per week in reported road casualties

• a majority of motorcycle fatalities (63%) do not occur at or within 20 metres of a junction compared to 49% of all seriously injured (adjusted) motorcycle casualties

• over a third (38%) of motorcycle fatalities were in 2 vehicle collisions between a motorcycle and a car

• 69% of motorcycle fatalities occurred on roads in rural areas compared to 39% of traffic

• 92% of motorcycle killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties were male

• the most common road safety factor allocated to motorcyclists in fatal or serious collisions (FSC) with another vehicle was ‘ineffective observation by either the driver or rider or pedestrian’

• ‘Ineffective observation by either the driver or rider or pedestrian’ was also the most common factor allocated to the other vehicles involved

2. Motorcycle traffic and reported casualties

In 2024, 340 motorcyclists were killed in Great Britain, whilst 5,468 were reported to be seriously injured (adjusted) and 10,152 slightly injured (adjusted).

Table 1 and Chart 1 show that motorcycle traffic fell between 2004 and 2024. However, the percentage reduction in non-fatal injuries was greater and fatalities slightly greater again.

The overall number of motorcyclist casualties fell each year from 2014 to 2020, but increased between 2020 and 2023, but fell again in 2024 to below the 2019 level.

Between 2023 and 2024, motorcyclist fatalities increased by 8% while motorcyclist traffic increased by 4%.

Chart 1: Index of motorcycle traffic and reported motorcyclist casualties by severity, GB: 2004 to 2024 (Index 2004=100)

Table 1: Number of reported motorcycle casualties by severity and traffic (motorcycle billion vehicle miles), GB: 2004 to 2024

Year	Killed	Serious	Slight	All	Traffic
2004	585	8,538	16,518	25,641	3.15
2005	569	8,277	15,978	24,824	3.31
2006	599	7,982	14,745	23,326	3.17
2007	588	8,201	14,670	23,459	3.39
2008	493	7,436	13,621	21,550	3.13
2009	472	7,177	13,054	20,703	3.17
2010	403	6,426	11,857	18,686	2.86
2011	362	6,984	12,804	20,150	2.90
2012	328	6,668	12,314	19,310	2.59
2013	331	6,491	11,930	18,752	2.65
2014	339	7,033	12,994	20,366	2.74
2015	365	6,730	12,832	19,927	2.75
2016	319	6,637	12,341	19,297	2.77
2017	349	6,174	11,519	18,042	2.74
2018	354	6,043	10,421	16,818	2.72
2019	336	5,671	10,217	16,224	2.67
2020	285	4,444	8,875	13,604	2.16
2021	310	5,185	10,343	15,838	2.53
2022	350	5,591	11,002	16,943	2.84
2023	315	5,468	11,195	16,978	2.85
2024	340	5,468	10,152	15,960	2.95

Source: DfT STATS19 and National Road Traffic Census

3. How far do motorcyclists travel?

There are 2 sources of motorcycling distances travelled published by the department:

• the National Travel Survey (NTS) which provides the number of trips and average distance travelled by person per year for English residents. This is used to derive casualty rates per mile travelled for pedestrians

• the National Road Traffic Census estimates based on annual traffic count data which produces total vehicle miles by type of vehicle and type of road. This is used to derive casualty rates per mile travelled for vehicle occupants

4. Casualty rates per mile travelled

The motorcycle casualty rate has fallen for all severities in 2024 compared to 2004.

The overall casualty rate decreased by 34%. The fatality rate decreased by 38% compared to a 32% reduction for serious injuries and a 34% reduction for slight injuries.

Chart 2: Index of casualty rates of motorcycle casualties by severity, GB: 2004 to 2024 (Index 2004=100)

Table 2: Casualty rates of motorcycle casualties by severity per billion vehicle miles travelled, GB: 2004 to 2024

Year	Killed	Serious	Slight	All
2004	186	2,710	5,242	8,138
2005	172	2,499	4,824	7,495
2006	189	2,519	4,654	7,363
2007	173	2,418	4,325	6,917
2008	158	2,378	4,356	6,892
2009	149	2,263	4,115	6,527
2010	141	2,246	4,145	6,532
2011	125	2,410	4,418	6,952
2012	127	2,574	4,753	7,453
2013	125	2,452	4,507	7,084
2014	124	2,568	4,745	7,437
2015	133	2,450	4,671	7,254
2016	115	2,397	4,457	6,969
2017	127	2,249	4,197	6,574
2018	130	2,223	3,834	6,188
2019	126	2,124	3,827	6,077
2020	132	2,054	4,102	6,288
2021	123	2,049	4,087	6,259
2022	123	1,970	3,878	5,971
2023	111	1,918	3,927	5,956
2024	115	1,853	3,440	5,408

5. Sex and age comparisons

Between 2020 and 2024, 92% of motorcycle casualties were male and 8% female.

There are 12 times more male than female motorcycle casualties overall. This pattern broadly holds across the different age groups shown in the chart.

Chart 3: Percentage of motorcycle KSI casualties, by sex and age, GB: 2020 to 2024

6. Which other vehicles are involved in collisions with motorcyclists?

Between 2020 and 2024, most motorcycle fatalities occurred in 2-vehicle collisions involving a car (602).

However, the highest proportion of casualties that are fatal occur in 2-vehicle collisions involving an HGV (9.4%). The second highest proportion (6.5%) occurred in collisions when two or more other vehicles were involved.

Table 3: motorcycle casualties in reported road collisions by severity showing other vehicles involved GB: 2020 to 2024

Other vehicles	Fatalities	Serious injuries	Slight injuries	All casualties	% Fatalities
No other vehicles involved	411	6,088	5,769	12,268	3.4%
1 pedal cycle	2	123	360	485	0.4%
1 motorcycle	31	539	1,204	1,774	1.7%
1 car	602	14,915	36,908	52,425	1.1%
1 bus or coach	7	127	317	451	1.6%
1 light goods vehicle	111	1,647	3,532	5,290	2.1%
1 heavy goods vehicle	72	312	385	769	9.4%
1 other vehicle	36	320	479	835	4.3%
2 or more other vehicles involved	328	2,086	2,612	5,026	6.5%
Total	1,600	26,156	51,567	79,323	2.0%

7. Time of day of collisions

The weekday peak time for motorcyclist KSIs is from 7am to 10am and from 4pm to 7pm. By contrast, the pattern differs for Saturday and Sunday for both trips and KSIs. During the weekend there is a single peak around early afternoon (12 noon to 4pm).

Chart 4: Reported motorcyclist KSIs by hour of day and day of week, GB: 2020 to 2024

8. What type of road?

Chart 5 shows that between 2020 and 2024, 69% of motorcycle fatalities occurred on roads in rural areas compared to 39% in traffic. The proportion of slight injuries and all casualties on roads in rural areas, however, were lower than the proportion of traffic. The rate of fatalities on motorways (2%) was lower than traffic (6%). The rates of non-fatal injuries were lower still.

Chart 5: Percentage of motorcycle casualties, by urban rural classification and severity and traffic, GB: 2020 to 2024

In this report, roads in urban areas are defined as those within an area of population of 10,000 or more in England and Wales or more than 3,000 in Scotland - roads outside of these areas are classified as roads in rural areas (Department for Transport types of road definitions).

9. Vehicle movement on the road

A majority of motorcycle fatalities (63%) do not occur at or within 20 metres of a junction compared to 49% of serious injuries (adjusted). However, 33% of fatalities occur at a junction compared to 46% of serious injuries (adjusted).

Table 4: Percentage of motorcyclist casualties by severity and junction detail where the collision occurred, GB: 2020 to 2024

Junction	Fatalities	Serious	Slight	All Casualties
Not at or within 20 metres of junction	63.1%	49.2%	37.8%	42.1%
T or staggered junction	21.6%	30.8%	33.4%	32.3%
Crossroads	6.2%	8.2%	8.9%	8.6%
Other junction	4.4%	5.6%	6.6%	6.2%
Unknown	0.5%	1.3%	8.7%	6.1%
Using private drive or entrance	3.8%	3.4%	2.8%	3.0%
Junction with more than four arms (not roundabout)	0.4%	1.5%	1.9%	1.7%

10. Road safety factors in collisions

The most recent STATS19 review (PDF, 2,289KB) recommended that contributory factors (CFs) be replaced with a new system of road safety factors (RSFs). This change in system has resulted in a step change in which factors for the portion of the data that are recorded in the new system. As the majority of the data has still been collected as CFs the analysis in this section is based only on data collected as CFs and then converted to RSFs. Full analysis of the change can be found in our guide to road safety factors.

Road safety factors provide an insight into how and why collisions occur. The factors are largely subjective as they reflect the opinion of the reporting police officer. They are assigned quickly at the occurrence of the collision and often without extensive investigations and so should be interpreted with caution. They are likely to be affected in part by preconceptions police officers have of certain vehicle groups. A maximum of 6 factors can be recorded for each collision.

Table 5 shows the 10 most common factors that have been allocated to motorcyclists that have been involved in fatal or serious collisions (FSC) (between 2020 and 2024) and contrasts this with the number allocated to non-motorcyclists in these collisions. There were 21,861 vehicles involved in these collisions, of which 11,563 were motorcyclists and 10,298 were non-motorcyclists. These proportions should be taken into account when comparing the proportions in table 5.

The most common factor assigned to both motorcyclists and other vehicle types was ‘ineffective observation by either the driver or rider or pedestrian’, followed by ‘driver or rider being aggressive or dangerous or reckless’.

The third most common factor allocated to motorcyclists was ‘driver or rider travelling too fast for conditions (including loss of control or swerving)’. For other vehicles in collision with them the third most common was ‘driver or rider overshot junction or poor turn or manoeuvre’.

Table 5: Proportion of vehicles involved in fatal or serious collisions with motorcycle assigned different road safety factors, by road safety factor and vehicle type GB: 2020 to 2024

Road Safety Factor	Motorcyclists (%)	Non-motorcyclists (%)	Any vehicle involved (%)
Ineffective observation by either the driver or rider or pedestrian	42%	68%	54%
Driver or rider being aggressive or dangerous or reckless	33%	19%	26%
Driver or rider travelling too fast for conditions (including loss of control or swerving)	19%	3%	12%
Driver or rider exceeding speed limit	16%	2%	9%
Driver or rider overshot junction or poor turn or manoeuvre	14%	19%	16%
Driver or rider inexperienced or learner	10%	3%	7%
Road surface was slippery due to weather	4%	1%	3%
Driver or rider illegal turn or direction of travel or failed to comply with traffic sign or signal	4%	6%	5%
Sudden braking or braking in a way unsuitable for conditions	4%	2%	3%
Affected by drugs	3%	2%	3%

11. Further information

Further information on road collisions and casualties are available from Road Safety Statistics.

Published tables on casualties in reported road collisions are available.

Non-fatal casualties since 2016 have been affected by a large number of police forces changing their reporting systems which has had a large impact on the classification of injuries recorded. Further details of the adjustment for this are in the severity adjustment guidance.

Road collisions and safety statistics guidance including accompanying notes and definitions are available.

Personal travel statistics within Great Britain covering English residents is available from the National Travel Survey.

Road traffic statistics provide estimates of the vehicle miles travelled each year in Great Britain by vehicle type, road category and region.

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14. Contact details

Road safety statistics

Email roadacc.stats@dft.gov.uk