Police recorded road collisions: April to June 2024 (provisional)
Data on severity of injury and type of road user for April to June 2024.
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In this page
Introduction
The data presented here reflect the personal injury road collisions reported by police in Wales from April to June (Q2) 2024. While these data are the most detailed and reliable source of information on road collisions and casualties, they do not include road collisions:
- that were not reported to the police
- that occurred on private land i.e. car parks or fields
- where no personal injury was recorded
- where the collision was later confirmed by a medical professional or coroner to be a suicide or medical episode
Given the increased interest in collisions data since the roll out of the 20mph default speed limit on 17 September 2023, we are publishing this statistical headline alongside the routine quarterly publication of data tables to summarise key results and to help interpretation and understanding. We also published a Chief Statistician’s update on ‘understanding road collisions and casualty statistics’ on 24 May 2024.
All the underlying data is published on StatsWales, and our road collisions dashboard. This includes additional detail on collisions and casualties by geographical area, speed limit, severity and vehicle type
Data for 2024 Q2 are provisional and subject to potential revision in the future. Minor revisions have been made to 2024 Q1 data due to the availability of updated data from police forces, these are marked with an (r). Detailed quality information is published in the accompanying quality report.
Collisions
Time series data over the long term are presented in our annual statistical release and show a long-term decrease in road collisions reported by police in Wales.
In 2024 Q2, there were 730 police reported road collisions in Wales. Of these collisions:
- 20 (3%) were fatal
- 218 (30%) were serious collisions
- 492 (67%) were slight collisions
The number of collisions is 16% lower than in the same quarter (April to June) in 2023 (869) and is the lowest quarter 2 figure recorded outside the coronavirus (COVID-19) period.
The number of quarterly road collisions in Wales has generally been declining steadily over the last decade and quarterly figures can be volatile. Care should be taken when interpreting this data over a short time period.
Figure 1: Quarterly police-reported road collisions in Wales, 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2
Description of Figure 1: The line chart shows a time series for the number of police-reported road collisions in Wales each quarter from 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2. The number of quarterly road collisions has declined steadily over the last decade.
Source: Road collision statistics, Welsh Government
20 and 30mph road speed limit
Most roads that were 30mph became 20mph on 17 September 2023. Therefore, significantly more roads are now 20mph roads (an increase from approximately 870km to 13,000km), and significantly fewer are 30mph (a decrease from approximately 13,100km to 980km).
This section considers collisions that occurred on all 20mph and 30mph roads (combined) to allow direct comparisons for the same set of roads before and after the change in default speed limit on restricted roads.
In 2024 Q2, there were 361 road collisions on 20 and 30mph road speed limits (combined). Of these, 6 were fatal collisions, 90 were serious and 265 slight collisions.
Road collisions data after the change to the 20mph default speed limit is currently limited to a short period of time (17 September 2023 to 30 June 2024) and is volatile over the short term. Care should be taken when interpreting this data over a short time period. We will continue to monitor this over time as more data becomes available. Our Chief Statistician’s update includes more information.
Figure 2: Quarterly police-reported road collisions on roads with a 20 or 30mph speed limit (combined) in Wales, 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2
Description of Figure 2: The line chart shows a time series for police-reported road collisions on roads with a 20 or 30mph speed limit (combined) in Wales each quarter from 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2. The number of quarterly road collisions on 20mph or 30mph has declined steadily over the last decade.
Source: Road collision statistics, Welsh Government
Casualties
Individual collisions can result in multiple casualties with different levels of injury severity.
In 2024 Q2 there were 1,006 road casualties reported in Wales. Of these casualties:
- 21 (2%) were killed
- 245 (24%) people were seriously injured
- 740 (74%) had slight injuries
The number of casualties is 12% lower than in the same quarter in 2023 (1,138) and the lowest quarter 2 figure in Wales outside the COVID-19 period. This number has generally been declining over the last decade.
The number of casualties in police-recorded road collisions in 2024 Q2 is 24% higher than in the previous quarter (814 (r)). Collisions data is seasonal and impacted by factors such as traffic volume and weather. The number of casualties tends to be higher in Q2 than Q1 (this is the case for 11 of the past 15 years).
Figure 3: Quarterly road casualties in Wales, 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2
Description of Figure 3: The line chart shows a time series for the number of casualties in police-reported road collisions in Wales each quarter from 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2. The number of quarterly casualties has declined steadily over the last decade.
Source: Road collision statistics, Welsh Government
20 and 30mph road speed limit
In 2024 Q2, there were 444 road casualties from road collisions on 20 and 30mph road speed limits (combined). Among these, 6 were fatalities, 98 were serious and 340 were slight casualties.
The number of casualties on 20 and 30mph roads (combined) is 24% lower than in the same quarter in 2023 (584) and 17% higher than in the previous quarter (379 (r)).
The number of casualties on roads with 20 and 30mph road speed limits (combined) in 2024 Q2 were the lowest quarter 2 figures recorded in Wales outside the COVID-19 period. This number has generally been declining over the last decade.
Figure 4: Quarterly casualties reported on roads with a 20 or 30mph speed limit in Wales, 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2
Description of Figure 4: The line chart shows a time series quarterly number of casualties in police-reported road collisions on roads with a 20 or 30mph speed limit (combined) in Wales each quarter from 2010 Q1 to 2024 Q2. The numbers have declined steadily over the last decade.
Source: Road collision statistics, Welsh Government
Notes
These statistics only include road collisions which resulted in personal injury and for which information was reported by the police. It is known that there is an element of under-recording of such incidents, particularly for less severe incidents where police officers may not have been in attendance.
These statistics do not include road collisions:
- that were not reported to the police
- that occurred on private land i.e. car parks or fields
- where no personal injury was recorded
- where the collision was later confirmed by a medical professional or coroner to be a suicide or medical episode
On 17 September 2023, the law changed the default speed limit on restricted roads in Wales from 30mph to 20mph. These are usually residential or busy pedestrian streets with streetlights. The changes will have affected most roads that were 30mph before 17 September, but not all. We have published a map on DataMapWales that shows which roads have stayed at 30mph.
Some data quality issues have been identified relating to the recorded speed limit of the road where collisions occurred. This is explained in more detail at the beginning of the Police recorded road collisions: 2023 statistical bulletin and in the data quality report.
