Rise in road injuries due to more accurate recording systems - but we are not complacent

National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Roads Policing, Chief Constable Anthony Bangham said:

"The Department of Transport believes that the rise in deaths or serious injuries on our roads is due to natural variation and changes to police recording systems rather than an actual rise. But we are not complacent – we want safer roads and fewer deaths and injuries. Every day police officers across the country are using all available intelligence to enforce the law on the roads and target the most dangerous driver behaviours.

“Police are now using a new recording system, which provides more consistent and accurate data on serious injuries on the roads. The CRASH recording system reduces the potential for personal interpretation by providing a common means of identifying levels of injuries. It will help us to work with partners, including the Department for Transport, to further analyse the causes of collisions and more effectively target prevention and enforcement activity.”

Further information:

CRASH is collision recording system that enables officers to record the level of injury by reference to the nature of the injury rather than a personal assessment of its seriousness. It is currently being used by 19 forces as a desk based system, but by 2018 we are aiming for a refreshed mobile system in where injuries can be recorded at the roadside.

One major difference in this recording system is that instead of asking reporting officers to define the category of injury they are asked to specify the nature of the injury from a drop down list. CRASH then automatically categorises the injury from the description. Serious injuries were more likely to be under-reported under the previous system.

The latest report from the Department for Transport can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/648081/rrcgb2016-01.pdf