The latest stats on road safety have been published by the UK Govt. What are the key trends for insurers?
First, it’s worth noting these are provisional stats based on Police force reporting, which is at best patchy. The good news is that both car and motorcycle fatalities decreased in 2023. In fact motorcycle fatalities are down by 12%, a huge drop in one year. At 306 deaths for motorcyclists compared to 407 for pedestrians, it’s more dangerous to walk the streets of the UK than it is to ride a motorcycle or scooter.
The report notes;
“There may be some duplicates, as some casualties might have been logged twice or more, these will be deleted following end of year validation. The potential of duplicate records is relatively small.”
It also notes large Police forces like Thames Valley and Derbyshire have not submitted all their data, so you have to allow an error rate with this data – hard to say what percentage, but probably less than 5% in catergories like pedestrians, cyclists or “Others” which presumably include e-scooters. Nobody really knows.
GENDER TRENDS
In general 75% of all fatalities and 61% of all road casualties were male – or identified as male, we can’t be sure how gender was defined in the data. In theory that means women are less likely to be involved in a serious accident, so should get cheaper insurance. But that would be discrimination of course, so it’s a no-no.
MOTORCYCLE TRENDS: ANALYSIS
Let’s start with the weather because motorcycling in the UK is mainly a leisure pursuit for older people aged 50 plus. The weather was exceptionally dreary, damp and cold until the end of May 2023, the summer was also one of the wettest recorded, according to the Met Office.
All that poor weather probably reduced the miles covered, especially by sportbike owners, who are arguably most at risk from high speed, sole rider incidents.
Secondly, several Councils rolled out average speed cameras on popular biker routes such as Lancaster to Kirby Lonsdale, Croston bends in Lancashire, the A39 Truro to Falmouth route, plus Stanningly by-pass in Yorkshire, where the speed limit was reduced from 60mph to 50mph at the same time.
The final point worth noting by insurance brands is that modern bikes often feature ADAS such as traction control, ABS brakes, plus rider modes, all of which reduce the chances of riders losing control in difficult road conditions. In the same way that cars featuring ADAS systems should attract lower premiums, the same should apply to owners of modern motorcycles, or those who pass Advanced Rider courses. In reality, it doesn’t seem to make any difference, which is an unenlightened approach from motorcycle insurers.
PEDESTRIANS
Mostly it’s a downward trend in 2023 on the roads, depite the increase in vehicles overall and the concomitant increase in uninsured, unlicensed, non-VED tax paying element on the roads. One exception is pedestrian fatalies, where a 6% increase was noted last year. It’s worth noting that the Highway Code hierachy law came into effect in 2022, which gave pedestrians priority at junctions. Has that led to more incidents? Hard to say.
E-SCOOTERS- WAS THERE REALLY A DECREASE?
For e-scooter riders the good news is that 2023 saw a decrease in injuries overall and fatalities were down 50% from 12 to 6 last year.
But is that the whole truth?
Nope. The truth is that Insurance Edge’s own research of fatal scooter deaths in the mainstream media last year revealed that 12 people, including 5 under 18s, were killed whilst using e-scooters, or died in hospital later from their injuries. Ages ranged from 8 to 46, although most e-scooter riders who lost their lives were under 30 years old.
Maybe the Police are re-classifying some of those deaths to other causes. For example the two boys who died whilst being allegedly followed by Police in the Cardiff area were on an e-bike, or e-scooter, depending on how you classify that particular vehicle. Let’s leave that tragic incident aside for the moment.
That still leaves 10 e-scooter deaths which IE discovered online in a 15 minute Google search, not the 6 stated by the latest UK Govt figures. There could be more. In percentage terms, that is quite a gap between Road Accident Casualty provisional estimates and reality.
Let’s assume the Police and Dept of Transport are not lying, rather that all parties involved are simply incompetent when it comes to collating road deaths accurately. Extrapolate that error rate across car, motorcycle, lorry and pedestrian deaths.
Not good is it? How can insurers assess the risks involved in modes of transport, or age ranges of drivers, licensed vs banned, drunk vs sober, if the official figures are so easily exposed as complete rubbish?
Anyway, moving on, here’s some comment from the RAC;
RAC REACTION
Following the UK Government’s release of its annual road casualty statistics, RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “While there has been a slight decline in the year-on-year number of road users killed in crashes, the larger proportion of pedestrian fatalities, which is now at its highest since before the pandemic, should be a red flag to the Government signifying just how dangerous our roads still are.
“It’s extremely concerning that these figures have risen in the two years since the Highway Code was changed with a view to making the roads safer for the most vulnerable users. We hope there isn’t a negative link between the two, but with RAC research showing a third of drivers think pedestrians now face greater danger at junctions due to the changes, there seem to be questions that need answering.
“In terms of overall road user casualties, it appears the youngest and oldest age groups are most at risk. The number of female fatalities between the ages of 0-16 increased by 17% compared to 2022, and the percentage for males within the same age group jumped by a third (31%) compared to the year before. Among the 414 female fatalities on our roads in 2023, nearly four-in-10 (151 – 36%) were in the 70 and over age group.
“Any number of deaths on the road is too many, so we strongly encourage the new Government not to take these figures lightly and to make road safety a priority. We continue to believe the Government should reinstate road casualty reduction targets.”
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