Accredited official statistics

Reported road casualties in Great Britain: older driver factsheet, 2025

Updated 30 July 2026

This factsheet gives an overview and key statistics on older car drivers involved in road collisions in Great Britain as reported by the police, including the main trends and characteristics of collisions. Older car drivers are a notable set of road users because of the ageing population and also the increase in older driving licence holders.

This factsheet defines an older driver as someone aged over 70 years old.

1. Things you need to to know

This factsheet presents trends from 2004 onwards. However, grouped data for years from 2021 to 2025 is used widely in order to allow sufficiently robust analysis by age, sex and other variables. Comparisons are made between collisions involving older drivers and those involving drivers of other ages, though there will be some overlap as a collision could involve car drivers of different ages.

1.1 Severity adjustment

The figures in this release for injured casualties are based on adjusting figures reported by the police to take account of changes in the reporting of injury severity by some police forces in recent years. These adjusted figures can reliably be used to compare trends over time across the country. More details can be found in our severity adjustments guidance.

2. Main findings

Overall, in 2025, around a quarter of all car drivers killed were older drivers, with 12% of all casualties in car collisions being in collisions involving older drivers.

Between 2004 and 2025:

• Killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver increased from 2,996 to 3,476, a rise of 16%

• KSI casualties in collisions involving other aged car drivers decreased from 35,913 to 20,125, a fall of 44%

Averaged over the period 2021 to 2025:

• 56% of KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver were male. This compares to 66% for KSI casualties from collisions involving other aged car drivers

• 27% of KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver were male and aged over 70 years old

• KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver peak between 10am and 4pm

• 53% of KSI casualties from older car driver collisions occurred on roads in rural areas, compared to 42% for other aged car drivers

• 54% of KSI casualties from older car driver collisions occurred not at junction or within 20 metres, compared to 54% of other aged car driver collisions

• the most common road safety factor allocated to vehicles driven by an older car driver involved in fatal or serious collisions (FSC) was ‘ineffective observation by the driver’ followed by ‘driver or rider overshot junction or poor turn or manoeuvre’

3. Introduction

3.1 Car driver casualty rates

Chart 1 shows KSI car driver casualties per billion miles driven, by age and sex. There is an increased casualty rate for those aged over 70 years old, particularly for those aged over 80 years old.

Chart 1: KSI car driver casualties per billion miles driven, by age and sex, Great Britain:2025

3.2 Older car drivers casualties by severity

Overall older car drivers accounted for 12% of all driver casualties in collisions involving cars in 2025, though this proportion increases with casualty severity (as older drivers are more likely to be killed in collisions in which they are injured than drivers of other ages). In this factsheet we focus largely on KSI casualties to show patterns as the number of fatalities is relatively small.

Table 1 shows that in 2025, 27% of all car driver fatalities were older car drivers.

Table 2 shows that in 2025, 20% of all fatalities from a collision involving at least one older car driver.

Table 1: Reported driver casualties by severity, older car driver casualties compared to all car driver casualties, Great Britain: 2025

	Killed	Serious	Slight	All
Older car driver	122	1,116	3,406	4,644
All car drivers	445	7,225	39,785	47,455
Percentage older car drivers	27	15	9	10

Table 2: Reported casualties by severity, from collisions involving an older car driver compared to collisions involving all car drivers, Great Britain: 2025

	Killed	Serious	Slight	All
From collisions involving an older car driver	232	3,244	9,916	13,392
From collisions involving all car drivers	1,160	22,969	87,375	111,504
Percentage involving older car drivers	20	14	11	12

4. Casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver

4.1 Casualties by type

Chart 2 and Table 3 show KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver, by casualty type which includes:

• the older driver themselves
• the passengers of the cars driven by older drivers
• all other casualties (including drivers and passenger of other vehicles, or road users)

There was a small increase in casualty numbers in all casualty types until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. COVID-19 caused a drop in casualty numbers however, the increase seen recently shows casualty numbers returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Since 2004 KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver have increased from 2,996 to 3,476 in 2025. When comparing 2025 to 2024 there has been an an increase of 8%.

During 2025, there were:

• 1,238 KSI older car driver casualties, an increase of 4% compared to 2024
• 486 passenger KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver, an increase of 12% compared to 2024

Chart 2: Reported KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver by casualty type, Great Britain: 2004 to 2025

Table 3: Reported KSI casualties by casualty type from collisions involving at least one older car driver, Great Britain: 2004 to 2025

Year	All casualties	Passengers of older car drivers	Older car drivers	Other casualties
2004	2,996	534	1,088	1,374
2005	2,937	523	1,050	1,364
2006	2,796	434	1,011	1,351
2007	2,765	438	937	1,391
2008	2,734	409	968	1,356
2009	2,782	416	973	1,393
2010	2,600	424	945	1,230
2011	2,982	434	985	1,563
2012	2,894	431	1,050	1,413
2013	2,969	401	1,027	1,540
2014	3,195	437	1,125	1,633
2015	3,048	435	1,114	1,498
2016	3,160	480	1,077	1,603
2017	3,199	480	1,080	1,639
2018	3,432	479	1,235	1,719
2019	3,325	473	1,177	1,675
2020	2,084	253	748	1,083
2021	2,539	326	901	1,313
2022	3,169	454	1,141	1,573
2023	3,366	465	1,228	1,674
2024	3,224	433	1,193	1,598
2025	3,476	486	1,238	1,752

Table 4 shows the proportion of each casualty type for the total KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver. This shows how the proportion of casualties being the passenger of the car has fallen over the long term, and the proportion of the casualty being the driver remained stable, whereas the proportion of other casualties has increased since 2004.

For 2025, older car driver casualties accounted for 36%, of all KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver. By comparison, for collisions involving other aged car drivers, driver casualties accounted for 32% of all KSI casualties in 2025.

For 2025, passenger casualties accounted for 14%, of all KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver. By comparison, for collisions involving other aged car drivers, passenger KSI casualties accounted for 15% of all KSI casualties in 2025.

Table 4: Proportion of all KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver by casualty type, Great Britain

Year	Passengers of older car drivers	Older car drivers	Other casualties
2004	18	36	46
2015	14	37	49
2024	13	37	50
2025	14	36	50

5. Demographics

5.1 Sex and age

Chart 3 and Table 5 show the sex and age breakdown of KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver between 2021 and 2025.

Between 2021 and 2025, 56% of KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver were male and 43% were female. This compares to 66% of males and 34% of females for KSI casualties from collisions involving other aged car drivers.

27% of KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver were male and over 70 years old. 27% of casualties were female and over 70 years old.

Chart 3: Percentage of KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver, by sex and age, Great Britain: 2021 to 2025

Table 5: Percentage of KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver, by sex and age, Great Britain: 2021 to 2025

Age	Female	Male
all ages	43%	56%
0 to 16	2%	3%
17 to 24	2%	5%
25 to 49	6%	12%
50 to 69	7%	9%
70 and over	27%	27%

6. Time of day

Table 6 shows the total KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver by hour of day and day of the week. The totals for the weekdays (Monday to Friday) have been averaged. KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver have a peak on weekdays from 10am to 5pm. On the weekends there is a peak between 11am and 4pm, however, overall casualty numbers at the weekend are lower than during the week.

Table 6: Total KSI casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver by hour of the day and day of the week, between 2021 and 2025, Great Britain. (Monday to Friday is the average of the total on each of those days).

Hour of day	Monday to Friday	Saturday	Sunday
00	5	13	14
01	1	9	5
02	2	5	1
03	2	5	2
04	1	2	1
05	3	6	6
06	12	9	8
07	30	15	14
08	60	42	27
09	102	100	48
10	140	146	111
11	175	175	139
12	173	177	151
13	172	136	160
14	190	172	161
15	224	148	148
16	180	134	130
17	143	143	74
18	83	73	90
19	56	55	46
20	28	39	39
21	28	25	28
22	23	21	15
23	9	21	10

Chart 4 puts these KSI casualty numbers into context by displaying them as a proportion of all KSI casualties from collisions involving any car driver.

KSIs casualties from a collision involving at least one older car driver make up a much higher proportion of all KSI casualties during the day, specifically between 10am and 3pm. It is worth noting that the proportion of casualties are very low in the early hours of the morning and late in the evening.

Chart 4: Proportion of KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver out of all collisions involving a car driver by hour of day and day of week, Great Britain: 2021 to 2025

7. Type of road

Chart 5 looks at the where the collisions involving at least one older car driver occur according to the rural or urban road classification.

Between 2021 and 2025, 53% of KSIs in collisions involving at least one older car driver occurred on roads in rural areas and 44% occurred on roads in urban areas.

In comparison for other aged car drivers 42% of KSIs occurred on roads in rural areas and 54% occurred on roads in urban areas.

Chart 5: Percentage of KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver and from collisions involving at least one other aged car driver, by urban rural classification, Great Britain: 2021 to 2025

In this factsheet, 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.

8. Collision circumstances

8.1 Vehicle movement on the road

Table 7 displays the percentage of KSIs in collisions involving at least one older car driver which occur at different junction types.

Between 2021 and 2025, 54% of KSIs in older car driver collisions occurred not at junction or within 20 metres. This is similar to collisions involving other aged car drivers where 54% of KSIs in collisions occurred not at a junction or within 20 metres.

Table 7: Percentage of KSI casualties from collisions involving at least one older car driver by severity and junction detail where the collision occurred, Great Britain: 2021 to 2025

Junction	Older car drivers	Other car drivers
Not at or within 20 metres of junction	54	54
T or staggered junction	27	26
Crossroads	9	9
Other junction	6	6
Using private drive or entrance	3	2
Unknown	1	1
Junction with more than four arms (not roundabout)	1	1

8.2 Single car collisions

Chart 6 shows older car driver KSI casualties from single and multiple vehicle collisions by casualty type, with a broadly similar trend for each group.

In 2025, 20% of older car driver KSI casualties were in single vehicle collisions.

Chart 6: KSI older car driver casualties from single and multi vehicle collisions Great Britain: 2004 to 2025

9. Factors contributing to collisions

9.1 Road safety factors

The most recent STATS19 review 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. The analysis in this section is based only on data collected using the road safety factor (RSF) system. Factors originally recorded as contributory factors (CFs) and subsequently converted to RSFs have been excluded. 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 8 shows the 10 most common road safety factors that have been allocated to older car drivers that were involved in FSCs (between 2024 and 2025). This is displayed as a proportion of all vehicles driven by older car drivers. These proportions are contrasted to the equivalent figures for vehicles driven by other aged car drivers.

The most common road safety factors assigned to both older car drivers and other car drivers was ‘ineffective observation by the driver’.

However, older car drivers were more likely to have factors relating to ‘illness or disability’ than other car drivers involved in collisions.

Table 8: Percentage of cars in FSCs driven by a older car driver with specific road safety factors assigned, compared to the equivalent percentage for other aged car drivers, Great Britain: 2024 to 2025

Road Safety Factor	Older car drivers	Other car drivers
Ineffective observation by the driver	41	29
Driver or rider overshot junction or poor turn or manoeuvre	22	13
Illness or disability	15	2
Distraction to driver or rider from inside or outside or on vehicle	10	8
Driver or rider travelling too fast for conditions (including loss of control or swerving)	7	9
Driver or rider vision affected by adverse weather or dazzling sun	6	3
Driver or rider passing too close to another road user or pedestrian	6	4
Driver or rider illegal turn or direction of travel or failed to comply with traffic sign or signal	5	5
Driver or rider had uncorrected or defective eyesight	4	0
Driver or rider being aggressive or dangerous or reckless	4	9

10. Further information

Further information on road collisions and casualties can be found in Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain.

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 2025 annual report.

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

Personal travel statistics within Great Britain covering English residents, including mileage by car drivers of different ages, is available from the National Travel Survey.

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13. Contact details

Road safety statistics

Email roadacc.stats@dft.gov.uk