Managing road safety
Collison data frequently asked questions
What is STATS 19?
This is the recording system for collisions reported/recorded by the police. It only includes collisions that occurred on a highway, involved one or more vehicles and human death or personal injury. It only includes collisions that were notified to the police within 30 days of occurrence.
Why do we collect collision data?
Every year on Swindon’s network, there are around 354 personal injury road traffic collisions, resulting in approximately 441 casualties.
The Traffic Management and Road Safety Team maintains a database of statistics on all personal injury road collisions records within the Borough. Wiltshire Police provides this information to us, which is uploaded into our live data base and checked.
The Council has access to collisions dating back to 1990 with over 16,653 records, which can be used together with our computer mapping system to monitor risk, collisions, clusters and concentrations on the highway network. This enables us to prioritise our annual road safety programme and target our spending on road improvements where required.
What do we do with the data?
We fulfil our statutory obligation to investigate collisions as mandated by the Road Safety Act 1988, which requires local highway authorities to implement road safety measures.
Our road casualty statistics reports, in a dashboard-style format, are a vital part of our efforts to analyse collision data collected by the police, uncovering the details of where, when, who and why collisions occur.
We gather road casualty data from Wiltshire Police and clean the data according to Department for Transport (DfT) guidelines.
We release collision data a year at a time normally a year behind the current year. This is due to a delay with receiving the data from Wiltshire Police.
What is the data used for?
In addition to identifying collisions clusters and 'hotspots', our data can also be used to:
- ensure that proposals with road safety benefits receive priority consideration
- determine the nature and characteristics of collisions along routes
- help prioritise spending on road improvements
- identify locations where speed limit reductions might be beneficial
- create evidence-based education programs tailored for different road user groups, including pedestrians, cyclists, younger and older drivers and motorcyclists
Why can’t I see any collision data for this year?
- The data may not yet be available or has yet to be provided by Wiltshire Police. In light of this, the Council will only publish collision data one calendar year at a time.
- The collision may not have been reported to/recorded by Wiltshire Police
- The collision may not have resulted in personal injury (or an injury was not logged with the police at the time of recording)
- The collision may have been inaccurately plotted. Whilst every reasonable effort is made to ensure that the information provided is correct, no guarantees for the accuracy of the information are made.
What are the differences between collisions and casualties?
A collision refers to the incident itself. The incident can involve any number of vehicles and people. This data only includes collisions where a person/people were injured.
Casualties are the people themselves who are injured in the collisions. These numbers can be higher than collision numbers as a single collision can result in more than one casualty.
What are contributory factors?
Contributory factors are largely subjective and depend on the skill and experience of the investigating officer. Contributory factors reflect the reporting officer’s opinion at the time of reporting and are not necessarily the result of extensive investigation.
Furthermore, it is recognised that subsequent enquiries could lead to the reporting officer changing their opinion. More than one factor can be assigned to each collision. Usually, two to three are assigned but a maximum of six can be recorded.
What is KSI?
This is an acronym for killed or seriously injured.
What is a slight injury collision?
Examples of 'slight' injury are sprains, not necessarily requiring medical treatment, neck whiplash injury, bruises, slight cuts and slight shock requiring roadside attention. Persons who are merely shaken and who have no other injury should not be included unless they receive or appear to need medical treatment.
What is a serious collision?
Examples of 'serious' injury are fracture, internal injury, severe cuts, crushing, burns (excluding friction burns), concussion, severe general shock requiring hospital treatment, detention in hospital as an in-patient (either immediately or later) and injuries to casualties who die 30 or more days after the accident from injuries sustained in that accident.
What is a fatal collision?
Human casualties who sustained injuries which caused death less than 30 days after the collision. Confirmed suicides are excluded.
What is five-year average?
Five-year averages are taken from the previous five years prior to 2024 (therefore 2019 to 2023).