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Professor John Robertson OBA

First, on age, under 30 year-olds have the highest accident and fatality rates by some way: ^{https://toptests.co.uk/driving-statistics/}

Second, on alcohol and road traffic accidents, around 300 die in accidents where at least one driver was over the limit, around 3 300 since the SNP reduced the level and politicians in England prevented the same: ^{https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-involving-illegal-alcohol-levels-2022/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-involving-illegal-alcohol-levels-2022}

Third, Scotland, not mentioned in the BBC UK reporting today and for these reasons not likely to be of interests to BBC Scotland:

Massive reduction in road fatalities and serious injuries in last 10 years and lowest in the UK

From Road traffic accident statistics: FOI release, published today, we see a 24% fall in road fatalities, from 203 in 2014 to 155 in 2023 and, for serious injuries, a 32% fall from 2 901 in 2014 to 1 944 in 2023.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400443200/

The longer-term trend:

From Transport Scotland May 30th 2024 , but not making it to any front pages or to BBC Scotland:

One hundred and fifty-five people were killed in reported road collisions in Scotland in 2023, 16 fewer than in 2022. Compared to 2022, there was a fall in reported casualties of 16% for pedal cyclists.https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/decrease-in-number-of-people-killed-on-scotland-s-roads-1/

Compared to what?

Compared to the rest of Britain, however, Scotland is the safest area overall, with 1.32 road accidents per 1,000 of the population, compared with 1.51 in Wales and 2.05 in England. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23424294.argyll-bute-scotlands-deadliest-roads/

Injury road collisions plummet by up to a third since 2019

From Transport Scotland – Road accidents in Scotland data: FOI release, published today, we can see that all road collisions with an injury, at all speed limits, have fallen dramatically since 2019, ignoring the Pandemic-caused dips in 2020 and 2021 when road traffic was significantly reduced.

Of particular interest, the injury collisions in the 30mph limit have fallen by 34%.

Similarly, collisions involving HGVs have fallen across all speed limits>

Critics may spot, if they read on, that injury road collisions where speed contributed to the collision have increased slightly since 2019, from 165 to 173 but remember, if there are less collisions all together, that proportion will inevitably increase.

Most of these FoIs are requested by the likes of Alex Cole-Hamilton of the Lib Dumbs, so it will be interesting to see if and how they try to spin this.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400443231/