The number of cyclists killed on British roads has fallen once again, dropping in 2024 by two per cent compared to the previous year, according to the Department for Transport’s latest road safety figures.
However, in London, the number of cyclists fatalities rose by one, as the number of journeys by bike increased by five per cent, prompting Transport of London to warn that, despite the “massive growth” of cycling in the capital, the risk to people on bikes “remains the same”.
Released on Thursday, the Department for Transport’s ‘Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates: 2024’ details the number of road traffic casualties which were reported by the police last year.
Overall, there were 29,537 killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties reported on British roads in 2024, of which 1,633 were fatalities, an increase of one per cent compared to the previous year. The number of casualties of all severities, however, fell to 128,375, a drop of three per cent compared to 2023.
85 cyclists were killed on British roads during this period, representing five per cent of all fatalities. Meanwhile, 43 per cent of all road deaths were car occupants, 25 per cent were pedestrians, and 21 per cent motorcyclists, with motorcycling fatalities witnessing the largest increase of all road users, jumping by nine per cent.
The number of cyclists killed, 85, also dropped by two from 87 the previous year. That number is also 25 per cent lower than the cycling fatality rate recorded in 2014.
Likewise, when assessing the total number of cyclist casualties, that downward trend continues, with 14,534 cyclists reported as road casualties in 2024, compared to 14,999 in 2023, a three per cent drop. Similarly, the number of cycling casualties in 2024 is also 32 per cent lower than a decade ago.
Car occupants again make up the largest share of all reported road casualties, with 55 per cent, with pedestrians accounting for 15 per cent (staying roughly the same as last year), motorcyclists 12 per cent, and cyclists 11 per cent.
The continued drop in cycling casualties and fatalities in Great Britain comes after the Department for Transport last month revealed that the total distance cycled per person in England rose by 9 per cent in 2024, though the average number of cycling trips for each person fell from 16 to 15.
Following the DfT’s release of its annual road safety statistics, Transport for London (TfL) also announced its own casualty data for 2024, which revealed that 3,696 people were killed or seriously injured on the capital’s roads last year, “the lowest level on record outside of the pandemic-affected years”, the government body says.
110 people were killed in road collisions in London in 2024, TfL revealed, with cars the method of transport involved in most collisions that killed or seriously injured someone else in 2024.
Meanwhile, 81 per cent of all people killed or seriously injured in 2024 in London were walking, cycling, or riding a motorcycle.
Nine people were killed while cycling in London last year, one more than in 2023. And with cycling journeys continuing to increase (the 1.33 million daily journeys in 2024 a five per cent increase on the previous year), TfL concluded that “the risk to people cycling remains the same despite massive growth”.
“TfL remains committed to improving cycle safety and ensuring cycling is sustainable, safe and accessible for all, and has quadrupled the cycle lane network since 2016,” the government body said in a statement accompanying the new figures.
“To continue to reduce risk and increase the number of people who choose to cycle, TfL and the boroughs will continue to expand the Cycleway network, tackle road danger hotspots, fund cycle training and improve cycle parking.”
Seb Dance, London’s deputy mayor for transport, added: “These figures show encouraging signs that our efforts to reduce road danger in London are making a difference, but every death or serious injury is one too many and we know there is much more work to do.
“The Mayor and I remain fully committed to his Vision Zero goal of eliminating death and serious injury from London’s roads by 2041.
“That means continuing to expand our safer speed programme, transforming dangerous junctions and investing in safe, high-quality walking and cycling infrastructure. We will continue working with TfL, boroughs and the police to reduce road danger and build a safer London for all.”
On the same day TfL revealed its latest road safety figures, the London Cycling Campaign launched a new initiative “daring” the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to “deliver on his promise to make London a climate-neutral city with safe, healthy, and people-friendly streets and no more people killed walking, wheeling, or cycling”.
As part of the group’s ‘Dare to Dream’ campaign, Khan has been urged to implement four “key ideas” which could “deliver change quickly and realistically”, including car-free Sundays, family-friendly cycling in outer London, a bike for every Londoner, and a low-traffic West End.
“Sadiq has spent eight years delivering bold and brave leadership on decarbonising London, cutting pollution and championing active travel, but the first year of his third term has seen the opposite,” the campaign’s chief executive Tom Fyans said.
“For the Mayor to hit his own transport, safety and climate targets, he really needs to get back to big ideas and bold action.”
25 thoughts on “Cyclist fatalities on UK roads fall by 2% – and down a quarter compared to 2014 – but transport authorities warn “risk to people cycling remains the same””
Stopping funding for overseas
Stopping funding for overseas conflicts would allow more police on the road here…
Well they already cut the aid
Well they already cut the aid budget, you can’t say they’re not trying…
But they might just end up
But they might just end up being Russian police.
The Chinese police are
The Chinese police are already here! (Alledgedly – though on investigation no illegal activity found in the UK, but this recognised as a practice that has occurred in many other countries).
Oh! 2% fewer cyclist deaths=
Oh! 2% fewer cyclist deaths= cyclist death and injury problem is over, and all this fuss about close-passing is a storm in a teacup- in the minds of the police and the hyper-junk press
wtjs wrote:
And it is STATISTICALLY MEANINGLESS in many ways – a drop of 87 incidents to 85 incidents is all noise, no signal.
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It’s worse than that: with just two counts we have no idea of the noise. Maybe a drop of 2 is indicative of a trend* (imagine a 2% drop year on year for 10 years, which is sort of implied with the contrast to 2014), maybe not. I find it bizarre that DoT cannot manage basic data presentation** but they are not alone.
* never mind the confounders for now.
**I guess you could use these data to consider whether the dependency on mode has changed. I am too lazy to type the numbers into a contingency table so will eyeball and say there is nothing notable.
This is true if you look at
This is true if you look at that period in isolation.
If you look at a ten year period (excluding pandemic years) then the trend is quite obvious.
IIRC it was only a few years ago that cycling fatalities dipped below 3 figures, the fact that we’re now debating the significance of a drop from 87 to 85 is a sign of how much progress has been made
I’m rather confused by this
I’m rather confused by this report – the changes in deaths aren’t really stastically insightful, though the casualty rates are. But what is missing is a sense of injuries relative to the prevalence of cycling – i.e. how many deaths or casualties per mile cycled in both rural areas and cities. Without this information, we can’t make any sound conclusions
Exactly – we need rates which
Exactly – we need rates which factor in “exposure” e.g. numbers doing so and how much is being done. And as you say ideally broken down by environments where they’re quite different.
Otherwise you have what the UK has done – cycling becoming “safer” because fewer people are cycling less.
The way to reduce “exposure” is … the way they have in the nearby country where far more cycling takes place.
That means completely separate where there are higher volumes of faster traffic from cyclists … but without making it less convenient and attractive. Unlike e.g. the “get the vulnerable road users out of the way” policies we have largely had in the UK.
And where they share space ensure that’s with a much smaller volume of local motorists who are going more slowly. People who aren’t simply travelling *through* the place and so should be motivated to be a little more careful and patient – because it’s their kids / family who may be cycling / playing in the street there…
Totally agree, but you might
Totally agree, but you might want to edit this, as I think you mean the opposite of what you say:
“……cycling becoming “safer” because fewer people are cycling less.”
Wasn’t there a minister in
Wasn’t there a minister in the last Conservative government who said that cycling in England was safer than in the Netherlands, because England had a lower per-capita rate of cycling related deaths? With no attempt to adjust for miles cycled!
Ah – does this work: [ UK’s
Ah – does this work: [ UK’s approach is not good because it’s resulted in ] “cycling becoming “safer” because fewer people are cycling and/or they are cycling less often / far”?
I was trying to say that the UK has a good safety record partly by making the following happen in practice : “if there are fewer vulnerable road users there will be fewer vulnerable road users to get hurt – hoorah, it’s safer!”
That has come about as a side-effect (sort of…) as we’ve continued to prioritise space and convenience for driving. So the roads are now really unappealing outside of a motor vehicle – indeed it’s not pleasant to walk beside a road with lots of fast motor traffic… We’ve also added “safety measures” like barriers, long diversions, “staggered crossings” at traffic lights etc. which trade improved safety for decreased convenience – also making cycling and walking less attractive relative to driving.
We’ve also added “safety
We’ve also added “safety measures” like barriers, long diversions, “staggered crossings” at traffic lights etc. which trade improved safety for decreased convenience – also making cycling and walking less attractive relative to driving
Agreed, and it’s only since I’ve read many worthy opinions on this site (and ignored many obviously unworthy ones) that I have understood such evils as the ultra-wide-radius curves at junctions which are even designed to allow speeding nutters to charge round 90 degree bends without slowing at all, faster than their tiny motorbrains can look in both directions along the road to be joined. I wonder if the Dutch have curbed such madness?
wtjs wrote:
Well, they’ve kerbed a lot…
I think they’re actually an interesting case simply because contrary to some myths while they have – deliberately – put pressure on people not to drive in some places and put money into alternatives to driving (the largely excellent public transit) … they are broadly still very “pro car”. They have high car ownership, lots of driving happens with some long commutes (all modes). It’s apparently very pleasant to drive there.
They build nice wide “fast roads” for motorists to get between places. (I think – sadly – some of this may be required in the UK if we’re to get our “traffic out of towns”).
I think – while they do apparently have a more stringent driving test – they’ve focussed more on “safety” with the humans as they find them. So “make it easy to do the right thing” and “be forgiving of mistakes”. (Also – make it “impossible” to make some kinds of mistakes).
Albeit they seem to have taken their eyes off the ball with cycling a bit recently. Complacency? Changing political trends?
Agree. Fatality or casualty
Agree. Fatality or casualty per mile travelled for each mode of transport would be far more relevant. The problem is getting accurate data. We should know how many fatalaties or casualties there have been from hospital records etc.
But we will never accurately know how many miles people have driven/cycled/walked.
Jem PT wrote:
The NTS gives some insight: http://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-travel-survey-statistics.
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So, how much have cycling journeys fallen by, and how much since 2014?
Also, looking at the original
Also, looking at the original data on the gov website, there is a startling gender and age difference in deaths. Men are between two and four times more likely to die than comparably aged women, and 18-37 year olds much more likely to die than children (least likely!) and older groups.
I wonder how that data looks
I wonder how that data looks when normalised for the amount of cycling by each of those categories?
I expect that males between 18-37 is the largest group of users, so it would make sense that they (myself included) are statistically most at risk.
But I grant that there are other factors at work which may be hiding from an initial interrogation of the numbers.
The (inferred) higher modal usage of 18-37y/o is likely due to cycle commuting, which puts riders on the road at times of increased traffic and therefore conflict, further increasing the likelihood of fatal collisions for that group over other cyclists.
All that being said, if the KSI accident [b]rate[/b] is decreasing, not just the total numbers, then that’s something to celebrate
These deaths are across all
These deaths are across all categories. But it does support the general idea that a lot of deaths are young men taking risks. Given that most deaths are in cars, then they are more likely to be statistically driven by the trends in young men in cars, rather than on bikes.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-provisional-results-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-2024
We know that casualties
We know that casualties dropped in Wales last year as a result of the 20mph limit. If we take out these numbers is is not likely that casualty rates elsewhere increased? I think we need a lot more data.
And I also thought the number
And I also thought the number of people estimated to be cycling had dropped, which also means casualty rates have increased based on the sample size
Basically it’s just a number a government will pat itself on the back with and nothing more
Wales is a small percentage
Wales is a small percentage of overall UK population though. So less effect than you may think.
I wonder what was the effect
I wonder what was the effect of parliamentary rhetoric (“end the war on motorists”, “force lycra-clad louts off the road”, “numberplates”, “they don’t pay road tax”)?