Reported number of accidents

The 2021 casualty and accident numbers will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated changes in travel.

Most notably, these changes included the 'second lockdown', which ran from 5 January 2021 to April 2021, and incorporated a legal requirement forbidding anyone from leaving their home except for essential purposes.

Figure 1 shows the long-term trend for injury road accidents recorded by the police.

In 2021, there were 3,833 accidents in which someone was killed or injured. This was 1% lower than in 2020 and the lowest number since records began. There were 134 fatal accidents in 2021, 3 (2%) more than in 2020. In 2021, there were 1,424 serious injury accidents; and 2,275 slight injury accidents.

Figure 1: Number of reported injury road accidents broken down by severity, 1999 – 2021.

Note for Figure 1: Due to changes in the way casualty severity is recorded, figures for the number of serious and slight accidents are not comparable with years prior to 2004.

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