Data reveals safest, most dangerous roads in UK

Avoid the Isle of Wight. That’s one of the surprising takeaways from a huge dataset released by the Department of Transportation recently.

Adjusting for how much driving people there do, the island off England’s southern coast has the highest rate of fatal crashes in the UK

There were almost 18 deaths per billion miles travelled in 2023, the most recent data available. And while central London appears to be as dangerous as you might expect - with the boroughs of Westminster (13.49), Kensington and Chelsea (13.16), and Lambeth (11) seeing pretty high numbers - the data shows that many of the places that we think of as dangerous aren’t that dangerous, and many of the places we think of as safe aren’t that safe.

Take the Manchester suburb of Stockport, for example. With major routes like the A6 and the M60 cutting through it, and thousands of commuters making their way to and fro each day, you might expect a high rate of fatalities. In fact, the area is home to one of the lowest fatality rates in the country, with less than 1 fatality (0.85) per billion vehicle miles.

Meanwhile, in areas popular with motorcyclists, such as the Welsh county of Powys, or the Scottish Highlands, fatality rates are perhaps surprisingly high, with rates of 13.22 fatalities per billion vehicle miles and 13.11 fatalities per billion vehicle miles respectively.

Using just fatality statistics can skew reality a little bit, however. Although the fatality rate in the Highlands is relatively high, the rate of collisions is quite low: just 135.17 collisions - of any severity - per billion vehicle miles. Compare that to Westminster’s rate of 2,770.26 collisions.

One might infer that the reason areas with low collision rates tend to have high fatality rates is because people are travelling at higher speeds in those areas. In places like the Highlands and Powys, the issue of access to emergency medical care may also play a role.

So, what can you draw from all this? Perhaps it’s this: the safest places to ride are those which have the lowest collision rates IF you are riding with care and attention (and have luck on your side). If you’re not, it seems that when things go wrong they go really wrong. Indeed, statistics show that 68 percent of motorcyclist fatalities occur on rural roads.

We’ve actually got it pretty good

One thing most of Britain’s riders might not have guessed is that the United Kingdom is actually home to some of the safest roads in Europe.

In 2023, the overall rate of fatalities in Blighty was 25.1 road deaths per million population, placing us in third among Europe’s safest countries. We’re outmatched only by perennial do-gooders Norway (20) and Sweden (21.8). Across the Channel, in France, the road death rate is 48. In my home country of the United States, it’s closer to 126.

In terms of raw numbers, road deaths have dropped considerably over the decades. In 2023, there were 1,624 road deaths across the whole of the country. That’s not a huge difference from the 1,713 killed a decade earlier, in 2013, but it’s an impressive drop from the 3,508 people who lost their lives on UK roads in 2003.

Looking just at motorcyclists, statistics show that some 315 bikers were killed on UK roads in 2023 - a slight uptick over 2022, but down from the 331 motorcyclists who lost their lives in 2013, and way down from the 693 killed in 2003.