Police statistics may be under reporting injuries sustained on Britain’s roads by a factor of five, a new academic report has suggested.

 

It adds that cyclists are the group of road users where there is the greatest disparity between self reporting data and police injury collision statistics.

 

The report from Dr Rachel Aldred of the University of Westminster claims that the high toll of unreported injuries involving motor vehicles may explain why many people think cycling is particularly risky.

 

Findings follow an exploration of data from the National Travel Survey, which asked people to give details of road injuries, collisions and falls since 2007. Most of these incidents were, it is said, never reported to the police and the majority were treated outside of a hospital.

 

The report says there is “systematic under reporting” of road injuries, particularly for slight injuries, and points out that police injury collision data known as Stats 19 only covers incidents on the public highway and never covers pedestrian falls. It adds that cyclists have anecdotally said police fail to record injuries caused by falls on tram tracks that make use of highways. 

 

Rachel Aldred said she decided to investigate the subject of under reporting as she wanted to look at people’s experiences of road injuries. “While mostly minor, such injuries like near misses be scary and put people off walking or cycling. The National Travel Survey data can shed light on differential under reporting and on how risk varies by demographic group.”

 

A second stream to the report highlights inequalities in terms of who is more likely to be injured in a collision with a motor vehicle. People in low income households, younger adults, disabled persons and residents in London are said to be at highest risk.

 

The report calls for further research, policy discussion and debate to explore why these inequalities exist and how to redress them.

 

Rachel Aldred said: “Motor vehicles represent the main threat to people walking or cycling so for both modes, we need to focus on protecting people. We should also prioritise groups of pedestrians that have been shown to be at higher risk: for instance, looking at whether people in low income areas are exposed to riskier road environments, and examine why motor vehicles seem to be a much greater risk to disabled pedestrians.”

 

To read the full report, search ‘Road Injuries in the National Travel Survey – Under reporting and inequalities in injury risk’.

 

♦ Dr Rachel Aldred discusses injury risk in a CIHT podcast with Justin Ward. To listen to the interview click here.