Casualty Reduction Targets: Scotland's Road Safety Framework to 2030

Casualty Reduction Targets: Scotland's Road Safety Framework to 2030

Introduction

Transport Scotland has published a Road Safety Framework to 2030 The following section provides information on the progress made towards the four main casualty reduction targets outlined in the framework. Each reduction target is assessed against a baseline of the 2014-2018 average.

Target 2030 target % reduction
People killed 50%
People seriously injured 50%
Children (aged < 16) killed 60%
Children (aged < 16) seriously injured 60%

As outlined previously, the number of serious and slight casualties cannot be directly compared to previously recorded figures due to changes in severity reporting.

Progress against the serious casualty reduction targets are therefore based on adjusted figures.

To illustrate the reductions necessary the following table shows the 2014 to 2018 baseline, the latest position, as well as the level of casualties inferred by the 2030 targets.

  2014-2018 average 2022 2030 target
People killed 174 173 87
People seriously injured 2,771 1,776 1,454
Children (aged < 16) killed (3 year average) 6 5 2
Children (aged < 16) seriously injured 264 176 111

Charts showing performance are presented in figure 8. More detail about the calculation of these indicative lines is included in the methodology of assessment section.

Summary of Progress

The 2022 figures show:

  • 173 people were reported as killed in 2022, 0.3 per cent (1) below the 2014-2018 average of 174.
  • 1,776 people were reported as seriously injured in 2022, 36 per cent (995) below the 2014-2018 average of 2,771.
  • 3 children were reported as killed in 2022, meaning the average for the 2020-2022 period was 5 a year, this is 17 per cent (1) below the 2014-2018 average of 6.
  • 176 children were reported as seriously injured in 2022, 33 per cent (88) below the 2014-2018 average of 264.

Figure 8 shows progress towards the casualty reduction targets for 2022.

Figure 8 (A): Reported casualties killed
Figure 8 (B): Reported seriously injured
Figure 8 (C): Reported children killed
Figure 8 (D): Reported child seriously Injured casualties

Commentary

Numbers killed

There were 173 people killed in 2022, a 3% reduction from the 2014-18 baseline average. The decrease seen to 2022 is not on track to meet the framework target for 2030 (a reduction of 50% from 2014-18 baseline).

Figure 8(A) shows that the total number of fatalities in 2022 was above the indicative line required to achieve the target.

Numbers Seriously Injured

There were 1,776 serious injuries in 2022, a 36% reduction since the 2014-18 baseline level.

Figure 8(B) shows that, the reduction is on track to meet the framework target for 2030 (a reduction of 50% from 2014-18 baseline).

Children killed

Due to the relatively small numbers involved and the impact of year-to-year fluctuations this target is measured using a three-year average. An average of 5 children a year were killed in the 2020-2022 period, a 17% reduction from the 2014-2018 baseline. Figure 8(C) shows that the reduction was above the indicative line required to achieve the target.

Children seriously injured

There were 176 child serious injuries in 2021, a 33% reduction since the adjusted 2014-18 baseline level Figure 8(D) shows that the reduction is currently on track to meet the framework target for 2030 (a reduction of 65% from 2014-18 baseline).

Other statistics for monitoring progress

Table 40 shows the baseline figures for each local authority area relating to the targets for the numbers killed (separately for trunk roads, local authority roads and all roads), along with the corresponding figures for each of the past ten years and the latest five years' averages. Table 42 shows figures for each Police Force division related to all killed and children killed.

Method for assessing progress towards the casualty reduction targets

One way of assessing progress towards the targets is to compare actual casualty numbers in each year with an indicative line that starts at the baseline figure in 2016 (mid-point of the 2014 to 2018 average) and falls, by a constant percentage reduction in each subsequent year, to the target for 2030. Other approaches could have been used: there are many ways of producing lines that indicate how casualty numbers might fall fairly steadily to the targets for 2030.

The method adopted to produce the indicative target lines shown in Figure 8 involves a constant percentage reduction in each year after 2016 to 2030. The resulting indicative target lines represent the percentages of the baseline averages which are shown in the table below. They are not straight lines, because of the compounding over the years effect of constant annual percentage reductions (to two decimal places, the falls are: 4.83% per annum for both killed and serious to meet the 2030 target. For both children killed and seriously injured casualties the fall is 6.34%.

Table Ia: Constant percentage reductions needed to achieve 2030 targets
  Killed and Serious (50% reduction) Child killed and serious (60% reduction)
% baseline (milestone from 2016) % reduction from baseline (milestone) % baseline (milestone from 2016) % reduction from baseline (milestone)
2016 100%   100%  
2017 95.17% 4.83% 93.66% 6.34%
2018 90.57% 9.43% 87.73% 12.27%
2019 86.20% 13.80% 82.17% 17.83%
2020 82.03% 17.97% 76.97% 23.03%
2021 78.07% 21.93% 72.09% 27.91%
2022 74.30% 25.70% 67.52% 32.48%
2023 70.71% 29.29% 63.25% 36.75%
2024 67.30% 32.70% 59.24% 40.76%
2025 64.04% 35.96% 55.49% 44.51%
2026 60.95% 39.05% 51.97% 48.03%
2027 58.01% 41.99% 48.68% 51.32%
2028 55.20% 44.80% 45.59% 54.41%
2029 52.54% 47.46% 42.71% 57.29%
2030 50.00% 50.00% 40.00% 60.00%

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