Traffic accident studies

Select each of the items below for more information on traffic accident studies.

Find information about crashes on roads near you.

Contact

If you require accidents data for a specific road or area, please contact the Traffic and Accident Data Team.

Please provide a plan of the area and the dates. The team can provide the accident detail listing (stats 19) and a plot of the accidents.

Please note that requests made for commercial purposes are chargeable. The fees vary from £243.80 (No VAT to be charged).

The statutory context

Traffic accident studies is a statutory requirement under Section 39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 which says that local authorities must carry out studies into accidents arising out of the use of vehicles on their road network.

Authorities must also, in the light of those studies, take such measures as appear to them to be appropriate to prevent such accidents.

There is a similar requirement in relation to new roads in that local authorities must take such measures as appear to them to be appropriate to reduce the possibilities of accidents when the roads come into use.

The Council’s approach

The County Council takes the following approach in relation to road safety engineering and highway design for reducing traffic collisions:

to reduce collisions at an existing location through the introduction of engineering treatment. The methodology is set out in detail in next section
to prevent collisions being caused when introducing new roads, junctions, crossings or other such changes to the existing highway, comprehensive road safety audits are undertaken at the design and construction stages together with post construction collision monitoring

Methodology

The Council's Methodology for Road Safety Engineering on existing roads:

Analysis of collision data. The Police provide the County Council with their Stats 19 accident investigation reports weekly (although there is sometimes a delay when investigation is more complex). Police Stats 19 reports are the primary source for accident analysis data as they are comprehensive in detail and consistent across the police force and nationally. The reporting of Stats 19 data is set out by Government and is the basis for the public accessible database Crashmap (include link to website). NB Crashmap does not provide the full data set from a Stats 19 report and is also historic, currently up to and including 2024.

The Stats 19 reports provided to the local highway authority are in full detail (minus personal information which is redacted) and up to date.

The County Council continually inputs stats 19 reports to our powerful geographical systems database called Accsmap which holds all historic data on all our roads. Initial analysis to determine location for further investigation is carried out via the following.

Single Site Analysis

This looks at the number, severity and vulnerable user involvement over the last 5 years, considers rising trends, common causation and comparison to the 'norm' or average collision rate for the type of site. A site that is worse in terms of the number of collisions compared to the average or norm is more likely to have a treatable problem

Route Analysis

This uses Collisions per billion veh.km (includes traffic volume as a factor). Comparison is made against average number of collisions compared to the average for that type of road e.g. Rural A roads

Mass Action Analysis

This looks at trends in collision rates for specific road user groups, road type, road condition etc.For example increases in the long term trends in pedestrian injuries on the rural road network would be identified and prioritised through this analysis method

In all instances where a statistically significant rise in collision rates is identified, again there is more likely to be an engineering based treatable problem.

Casualty reduction schemes

Following the prioritisation process for the identification of sites for potential road safety engineering works, an options appraisal of remedial measures is carried out which incorporates detailed collision analysis and common causation, site-based evidence including speed and traffic surveys, road environment, road user behaviour and a review of any damage only or locally reported incidents or road safety issues. A range of options may be identified for any given problem site, the estimated collision savings and cost benefit of each option will be considered as well as site specific issues in the decision making.

Following implementation of engineering improvements, the sites are monitored for at least 3 years and the results feed into the process for the purpose of best practice.

Examples of schemes

Download:

Houndsfield Lane/Hollywood Lane/Lea Green Lane (PDF)

Summary data

Personal Injury Collisions recorded across Worcestershire over the last 10 years to the end of 2025.

Year	No. of collisions	No. of casualties	Severity = fatal	Severity = serious	Severity = slight	Not coded
2016	1030	1386	14	196	820
2017	992	1294	25	186	781
2018	807	1075	22	183	602
2019	878	1151	17	175	686
2020	691	911	14	146	531
2021	751	979	20	202	527	2
2022	754	983	19	187	548
2023	643	857	20	183	438	2
2024	696	951	22	202	468	4
2025	624	818	22	197	405

Note: Most police services, including West Mercia Police since mid-2024, now split serious collisions into ‘less serious’, ‘moderately serious’ and ‘very serious’ categories in line with guidance from the Department for Transport. Further information can be found at Road safety statistics: guidance (GOV.UK). This is a relatively recent change which affects only a small part of the 10-year data set.