Tameside SCB

Road Safety

Child Road Safety Risk – report identifies variations by areas

An analysis into child road casualty risk by the areas in which they live has now been published.

The report titled “Child Casualties 2010; A study into resident risk of children on roads in Great Britain 2004-08”, examines the level of risk children are exposed to is compared across 408 local authority areas and shows that children living in some areas have almost a one in 200 chance of being injured each year.

The research is based on five years’ data covering over 120,000 child road casualties and is the first time that such a detailed study has been conducted. The findings indicate that children living in Preston are more than twice as likely to be injured on the road than the national average, and five times more likely than those in Kensington & Chelsea.  The report also appears to show that children in areas with a greater prevalence of deprivation are also at much greater risk than those from more affluent areas.

More specific findings from the report show that:

• The national average is for one child (aged 0-15 years) in every 427 to be injured in a road traffic crash each year.
• The children most at risk are those from “families on lower incomes who often live in large council estates where there is little owner-occupation” and are found in most regions in the UK, with the exception of the South East and London.
• Road safety risk is at its highest on a Friday, the next highest day is Saturday.  Sunday is the day that the fewest number of casualties are recorded
• May is when the highest number of recorded child casualties are reported while the winter months show child casualties decreasing by approximately 25 per cent. Child pedestrian casualties are actually at their lowest in August.
• Overall, children are less likely to be injured on the roads than adults

Tameside is ranked 35^th out of the 408 areas with one child in 313 being a casualty over the study period. For comparison, our neighbouring authorities are Stockport (160^th at 1 in 423 children); Oldham (15^th at  1 in 282); Manchester (6^th at 1 in 259); High Peak (130^th at 1 in 396).

For more information about the report go to  http://www.roadsafetyanalysis.org/