Road Traffic Accidents

This topic area covers statistics and information relating to road traffic accident including local strategic need and service provision. More general information relating to accidents and injuries among children and young people aged 0-24 years can be found under Accidents and Injuries Among Children and Young People.

This page contains information from the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities’ Fingertips. Information is taken ‘live’ from the site so uses the latest available data from Fingertips and displays it on this page. As a result, some comments on this page may relate to an earlier period of time until this page is next updated (see review dates at the end of this page).

Headlines

• From Safer Roads Humberside’s casualty dashboard, over the seven year period 2019 to 2025, there were 5,418 road casualties in Hull. In terms of severity, 4,403 (81%) were slight, 968 (18%) were serious, and 47 (1%) were fatal.
• Of the 5,418 casualties, 3,361 (62%) were male. Overall, 1,156 (21%) casualties were aged 25-34 years and 1,027 (19%) were aged 16-24 years.
• Seven in ten of these accidents where there was a casualty recorded occurred in daylight and around nine in ten occurred in fine weather conditions. The most common two-hourly period for accidents was 4-6pm, and the highest number of casualty accidents occurred on a Friday.
• Of the 5,418 casualties, 41% were car occupants, 26% were pedal cyclists, 15% were pedestrians, 10% were motorcyclists, 3.4% were bus or coach users, 1.9% were goods vehicles occupants, and 2.6% were other road users which includes motorised scooters, mobility scooters, etc. The number of these other road user casualties has increased over time from 0.8% in 2019 to 5.3% in 2025.
• Over the four year period 2022/23 to 2025/26, there were 970 emergency hospital admissions due to traffic accidents to Hull residents equating to 242 admissions on average per year. All numbers involving hospital admission data are rounded to the nearest five so the numbers may not sum to the totals.
• Almost three-quarters (73%) of all admissions were among men and more than one-third (35%) were admissions among men aged 10-39 years. The number of admissions was 2-3 times higher among men compared to women for every age prior to 75+ years (where the population is higher for women).
• Among those who were injured and admitted to hospital, 200 were pedestrians, 355 were pedal cyclists, 190 were motorcyclists, 130 were car occupants, 10 were van occupants, 10 were heavy goods vehicles occupants, 25 were bus occupants, 40 were other land transport accidents (which included animal riders, occupants of animal-drawn, industrial, agricultural, construction or all-terrain vehicles) and 10 were water transport accidents.
• Among the 200 pedestrians injured, over half (105) involved a collision with a heavy goods vehicle, only 10 involved a collision with a car, van, truck or pick-up, and 75 involved other circumstances. The majority of the pedal cyclists who were injured (220 out of 355) were involved in non-collision accidents with 65 involving a collision with a car, van, truck or pick-up. This was also the case for motorcyclists with the majority involved in non-collision accidents (85) with 65 involving a collision with a car, van, truck or pick-up. The car occupants that were admitted to hospital were evenly split between collisions with a car, van, truck or pick-up, and non-collision accidents (45 each). Twenty of the 25 bus occupants were involved in non-collision accidents, and of the 40 other land transport accidents, 15 were animal riders and 15 were occupants of all-terrain vehicles.

The Population Affected – Why Is It Important?

Improving road safety and reducing road casualties is important. In Great Britain, during 2024, there were 1,602 fatalities, 29,467 killed or serious injured casualties, and 128,272 casualties in total (all severities). With an estimated 340 billion vehicle miles travelled in 2024, this equates to 4.7 road fatalities per billion vehicles miles travelled.

Road traffic accidents have a huge impact on people’s lives particularly more serious accidents where lives are lost or there are significant long-lasting injuries as this impacts the individuals, their whole family and community.

There is also an economic impact on road traffic accidents due to economic losses to individuals and their families as well as to the nation as a whole in terms of lost productivity of employees, and the economic cost of delays and traffic jams because of accidents on the roads. There are further direct costs in relation to emergency services attending accidents and/or treating individuals, as well as further costs related to insurance, administrative costs and damage to property.

Reducing road traffic accidents can also have an impact on safety and perception of safety, and reduce stress levels resulting in a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, lower healthcare costs, improved mobility, and increased walking and cycling, and active travel.

In 2023, the average cost of a single road fatality in Great Britain was estimated to be over £2.4 million which encompassed economic output, medical care, and human cost of pain and suffering. This represents a high social cost beyond direct insurance impacts. The total societal costs of all road accidents in Great Britain is estimated to be tens of billions of pounds. Road traffic crashes cost most counties roughly 3% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

A report on reducing unintentional injuries on the roads among children and young people under 25 years by The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (formerly Public Health England) in 2018 in partnership with Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Child Accident Prevention Trust stated that although the rate of children and young people aged 0-24 years killed or seriously injured in road traffic collisions have fallen in recent years, there were 69 child deaths in 2016 in England up from 54 the year before and that this was the highest number since 2009.

Their report discusses a range of other guidance on active travel, spatial planning and healthy high streets that also provide a range of actions for local authorities from overall policy to practical implementation that can improve transport and the build environment which can impact on accident prevention. They describe a four-step model to help build robust injury prevention strategies focusing on three priority areas:

• Improving safety for children travelling to and from school.
• Introduce 20 mile an hour limits and zones in priority areas as part of a safe system approach to road safety.
• Action to prevent traffic injury and improve health works best when it is coordinated.

Their report also examines the economic case for prevention. They state that the cost of road traffic accidents is high, and reference that The Chief Medical Officer highlighted that the average medical and ambulance cost to the NHS was around £14,000 for every serious injury. This excludes other costs such as accident and emergency attendances, long-term treatment, social care, social security costs and productivity losses.

Vision Zero is a global road safety strategy aiming to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by prioritising system design, shared responsibility, and proactive prevention.

Vision Zero is founded on the belief that traffic deaths and severe injuries are preventable, not inevitable, and that the road system should be designed to protect all users, even when mistakes occur.

It can be made up from five different elements:

• Safe speed: speed management, speed enforcement, speed limits, etc.
• Safe road users: education, behaviour change, school engagement, driver awareness, etc.
• Safe roads: junction design, crossings, maintenance, visibility, traffic calming, etc.
• Safe vehicles: fleet safety, heavy goods vehicles interaction, technology, etc.
• Post-collision response: emergency response, first aiders and equipment, learning from collisions, data sharing, etc.

The intention is to work together on all of these factors to prevent harm, even when mistakes happen. It can be thought to utilise the ‘Swiss cheese’ model where the there are several ‘barriers’ (slices of cheese) all lined up with each slice a safeguard or barrier to prevent an accident. In the each barrier, there are weaknesses or even holes (like Swiss cheese). In most cases, the holes or weaknesses do not align so one barrier or safeguard catches the mistake. However, when the holes or weaknesses line up, the mistakes slips through all the barriers which result in an accident. For instance, if the driver of a car is speeding, but the design of the road is such that it naturally slows drivers down such as narrowing the road or with speed bumps, this reduces the likelihood of the pedestrian who is crossing the road being killed or seriously injured.

The Hull Picture

“Stats19” information is collected by Humberside Police which records data on injury collisions across Humberside. It only includes information on injury collisions that occurred in Humberside on a public highway where the police attended or accidents that were notified to the police within 30 days of the occurrence. Therefore, damage-only collisions, accidents and injuries not reported to the police, and accidents and injuries that occurred on private roads or in car parks are not included.

Map of All Injury Collisions Across the Humber Region

Safer Roads Humber produce a map that shows all injury collisions that occurred in the Humberside region between 2024 and 2025 (provisional data) on Safer Roads Humber Data which includes collisions involving slight and serious injuries as well as fatal collisions. Their information comes from freely available information on injury collisions Crash Map data from across Great Britain.

Detailed Analysis of Road Traffic Casualties in the Humber Region

Safer Roads Humber also produce detailed information on casualties across the Humber for the seven year period 2019 to 2025 from the “Stats19” data collection.

For road casualties in Hull, it is necessary to select Hull from the top left hand corner. Safer Roads Humber’s dashboard is interactive, which means that it is possible to click on elements of the dashboard to filter the data. It is also possible to do this for multiple visuals by holding down CTRL and clicking on all relevant visuals.

For instance, to obtain the number of children and young people who were pedestrians casualties in 2025 in Hull, it is possible to click on Hull, and then press CTRL and click on 2025 in the Casualties by Year bar chart, click on Pedestrians in the square ‘tree map’ illustrating Causalities by Road User Group, and click on 0-15 on the Casualty Age bar chart. This then shows that there were 28 children who were casualties as pedestrians in 2025 with 22 (79%) of them resulting in a slight injury and 6 (21%) of them resulting in a serious injury. The majority occurred during the weekday with only two casualties each on Saturday and Sunday. Of the 24 casualties that occurred on a weekday, 16 (67%) occurred between 2pm and 6pm (with 77% of these weekday casualties occurring in daylight). There were 27 children and young people aged 0-15 years who were pedal cyclist casualties in 2025 with four in ten of these occurring in June and July.

Number of Road Casualties

The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities’ Fingertips includes information on the rate of people killed or seriously injured on England’s roads. The rate is given as the number per 100,000 population.

For 2024, the number of Hull residents who were killed or seriously injured on the roads was more than twice as high as England (192 versus 90 casualties per 100,000 population).

There has been some year-on-year variability in the number of Hull residents who were killed or seriously injured on the roads over time. The rates were lowest in 2020 and 2021 with fewer cars on the roads and fewer people travelling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the latest rate in 2024 is lower than it was in 2017 and 2018.

Based on the Safer Roads Humber dashboard (above), the number of Hull residents who were casualties of the roads is given below.

The highest number of fatalities occurred in 2020 (1.2% of all casualties) and 2021 (1.3% of all casualties) and whilst there were fewer vehicles on the roads, the travelling speeds of those cars was increased which resulted in a slightly higher percentage of fatalities.

Year	Sight	Serious	Fatal	Total
2019	761	163	7	931
2020	581	108	8	697
2021	561	115	9	685
2022	626	130	4	760
2023	670	140	8	818
2024	610	145	3	758
2025	594	167	8	769
Total	4,403	968	47	5,418

Number of Road Casualties Aged 0-15 Years

The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities’ Fingertips also includes information on the rate of children and young people killed or seriously injured on England’s roads among those aged under 16 years. The rate is given as the number per 100,000 population.

The rate in Hull is 80% higher than England for 2021-23 (35.3 versus 19.7 per 100,000 population).

Over the three year period 2021-23, there were 57 children aged 0-15 years who were killed or seriously injured on Hull’s roads equating to on average 19 children per year. Whilst this is an increase from the number in 2019-21 and 2020-22, the numbers decreased in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and fewer children travelling to and from school. During 2017-19, prior to the pandemic, there were 71 children aged 0-15 years who were killed or seriously injured on Hull’s roads, so the number for 2021-23 is a considerable reduction.

Based on the Safer Roads Humber dashboard (above), the numbers should decrease for 2022-24 as there were 51 serious or fatal casualties recorded for the period 2022 to 2024.

Year	Sight	Serious	Fatal	Total
2019	97	26	0	123
2020	54	7	2	63
2021	67	17	0	84
2022	67	21	0	88
2023	85	18	0	103
2024	87	11	1	99
2025	72	13	0	85
Total	529	113	3	645

Emergency Hospital Admissions Due to Traffic Accidents

Total Number of Admissions

Information is available on the number of emergency hospital admissions due to traffic accidents for Hull residents. All numbers are rounded to the nearest five admissions and are not presented if the number of admissions is fewer than 8.

Over the four year period 2022/23 to 2025/26, there were a total of 970 emergency hospital admissions due to traffic accidents for Hull residents equating to, on average, 242 admissions per year.

Number of Admissions by Sex And Age

Almost three-quarters (700; 73%) were among males, and one in 11 were for young people aged 10-14 years with 0-19s representing 21% of all admissions. People aged 20-39 years made up 30% of admissions, and it was 30% for people aged 40-64 years and 18% for people aged 65+ years. Males aged 10 to 39 years accounted for more than one-third (35%) of all emergency hospital admissions.

For every single five-year age group (except older ages where overall population numbers are higher among women), a higher percentage of men were admitted compared to females. The largest differences were among those aged 15-19 years and 25-29 years with the second largest difference occurring for those aged 20-24 years, 40-44 years and 45-49 years.

Age	Males (N)	Males (%)	Females (N)	Females (%)
0-9	40	4.1	10	1.0
10-14	65	6.7	25	2.6
15-19	55	5.7	10	1.0
20-24	55	5.7	15	1.5
25-29	50	5.2	10	0.1
30-34	60	6.2	20	2.1
35-39	55	5.7	25	2.6
40-44	45	4.6	15	1.5
45-49	40	4.1	15	1.5
50-54	40	4.1	20	2.1
55-59	45	4.6	15	1.5
60-64	40	4.1	15	1.5
65-69	40	4.1	15	1.5
70-74	20	2.1	15	1.5
75-79	20	2.1	20	2.1
80-84	10	1.0	10	1.0
85+	15	1.5	15	1.5
All ages	700	72.2	265	27.3

Number of Admissions by Mode of Transport Among Injured

Among those injured, 200 were pedestrians (130 males and 70 females), 355 were cyclists (280 males and 75 females), 190 were motorcyclists (175 males and 15 females), 130 were car occupants (65 males and 65 females), 10 were van occupants, 10 were heavy goods vehicles occupants, 25 were bus occupants (10 males and 15 females), 40 were other land transport accidents which included animal riders, and occupants of animal-drawn, industrial, agricultural, construction or all-terrain vehicles (25 males and 20 females) and 10 were water transport accidents. These numbers do not sum to the total 970 admissions as not all vehicles types are given (where numbers are too small).

The pedestrians injured were spread across the age groups with 10 aged 0-9 years, 30 aged 10-19 years, 15 aged 20-29 years, 30 aged 30-39 years, 20 aged 40-49 years, 25 aged 50-59 years, 20 aged 60-69 years, 25 aged 70-79 years and 20 aged 80+ years.

The cyclists injured were also spread across the age groups with 25 aged 0-9 years, 70 aged 10-19 years, 40 aged 20-29 years, 60 aged 30-39 years, 50 aged 40-49 years, 50 aged 50-59 years, 35 aged 60-69 years, 20 aged 70+ years.

Around half the motorcyclists injured were aged 20-39 years with 30 aged 10-19 years, 55 aged 20-29 years, 40 aged 30-39 years, 25 aged 40-49 years, 20 aged 50-59 years, and 25 aged 60+ years.

Car occupants who were injured were relatively evenly spread across the adult age groups with 20 aged 20-29 years, 20 aged 30-39 years, 10 aged 40-49 years, 10 aged 50-59 years, 20 aged 60-69 years, 25 aged 70-79 years, and 10 aged 80+ years.

Number of Admissions by Mode of Transport Among Injured and Collision Vehicle

It is not possible to present the information for the mode of transport for the injured person and the collision vehicle (if there was one) as the numbers are too small for most combinations. So they are only presented if there are ten or more such admissions.

Among the 200 pedestrians that were injured, 10 involved collisions with cars, vans, pickups or trucks, 105 involved collisions with heavy goods vehicles, and 75 involved other circumstances (or were not recorded).

Among the 355 pedal cyclists that were injured, 15 were collisions with other cyclists, 65 were collisions with cars, vans, pickups or trucks, 20 were collisions with fixed or stationary objects, and 220 were non-collision accidents.

Among the 190 motorcyclists that were injured, 65 were collisions with cars, vans, pickups or trucks, 20 were collisions with fixed or stationary objects, and 85 were non-collision accidents.

Among the 130 car occupants that were injured, 45 were collisions with cars, vans, pickups or trucks, 20 were collisions with fixed or stationary objects, and 45 were non-collision accidents.

Twenty of the 25 bus occupants that were injured were involved in non-collision accidents (which presumably could include falls down the stairs etc).

Among the 40 admissions where the person injured was involved with another land transport, 15 were animal riders or occupants of an animal-drawn vehicle, and 15 were occupants of all-terrain vehicles.

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Road Traffic Accidents

Analysis of the local data compared with national data has shown that in many areas of the country, the number of road traffic accidents reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic as there were fewer people travelling on the roads and fewer vehicles. However, for Hull, it has been noted that the speed of vehicles travelling on Hull’s roads increased as there were fewer vehicles and less congestion. This resulted in an increase in the number of speed-related accidents in Hull. However, as road traffic usage returned to pre-pandemic levels, the number of speed-related accidents fell.

This observation might not be reflected in the hospital admission rates and casualty rates above as not all accidents will result in the accident being recorded or result in a hospital admission.

Strategic Need and Service Provision

The rates of pedestrian, pedal cyclists and motorcyclist casualty in Hull are higher than the England average, this is likely due to the high number of pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorcyclist using the roads in Hull compared to rural areas., as well as the reporting system used by  Humberside Police, which allows members of the public to directly report incidents through their website, resulting in a greater likelihood of road traffic accidents being reported in Hull compared to other areas that do not have that facility.

There is growing anecdotal evidence that more children are being injured as passengers in cars in Hull, which is a trend mirroring the national trend. This is perhaps not surprising, given that car seat safety checks undertaken in Hull consistently show that around 80% of child seats are fitted incorrectly.

Road Safety services and other key partners attend the monthly Hull Birth Preparation and Parent Education ‘Hey Baby Carousel’ and provide information related to car seat safety and accident prevention information for parents-to-be. This service has been temporarily paused due to the pandemic, with plans for this to be reinstated as services across the NHS are restored.

Cycle Safety continues to be at the forefront of Road Safety starting with the provision of free Bikeability cycle training across school Years 5 (aged 9-10) and 6 (aged 10-11) across the City which is complimented by Hull City Council giving a free cycle helmet to each child that takes part in the Council’s scheme. This is complimented by an adult cycle training programme, Rusty Riders.  This is complimented with Operation Safe pass, a joint initiative between Humberside Police and Hull City Council to highlight to motorist the legal requirements to give all cyclists plenty of room when passing.

Pupils in Years 3 (aged 7-8) or 4 (aged 8-9) also benefit from Pedestrian Skills training (Green Cross Code) in all Hull primary schools.

Kid Alert is an annual initiative involving around 2,000 Year 6 (aged 10-11) children who go through a series of scenarios looking at different areas of safety. 

Resources

The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities’ Fingertips: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/

Safer Roads Humber. http://www.saferroadshumber.com/

Humberside Police. Collisions and Incidents. https://www.humberside.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/rs/road-safety/collisions/

Humberside Police. Non-Injury Road Traffic Collision. https://www.humberside.police.uk/ro/report/rti/rti-beta-2.1/report-a-road-traffic-incident/

Reducing Unintentional Injuries on the Roads Among Children and Young People Under 25 Years. The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (formerly Public Health England), the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Child Accident Prevention Trust. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/695781/Reducing_unintentional_injuries_on_the_roads_among_children_and_young_people_.pdf

Good Egg Safety Guides. https://hull.goodeggsafety.com/

The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (formerly Public Health England), Royal Society of the Protection of Accidents, and the Child Accident Prevention Trust. Reducing unintentional injuries on the roads among children and young people under 25 years. The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, 2018.

Department for Transport. Total value of prevention of reported accidents by severity and cost element, 2020.

Safer Roads Humber. http://www.saferroadshumber.com/

Updates

This page was last updated / checked on 8 October 2026.

This page is due to be updated / checked in April 2027.