Young Children At Heightened Risk Of Becoming A Road Casualty

On dark evenings, which fortunately aren't too far away from becoming lighter soon, new analysis from a survey about primary school children and road accidents has been published.

New analysis of road traffic accident data has revealed that more than 10,000 primary school-aged children (4 to 11 year olds) have been hit by a vehicle since the start of 2017 to 2020 (the latest data that is available), amounting to a daily average of 7 incidents.

The research shows that children in this age bracket are around a quarter (22%) more likely to be involved in a road traffic accident, than the rest of the population.

The obvious times of school drop off and pick up times, when these children are near roads.

It seems that children in the north of England are most vulnerable, pro-rata of the data, with Yorkshire, the North East and North West yielding the highest number of accidents per 10,000 children. Scotland doesn't fair much better but the figures are not broken down into areas and just as a country, as is Wales.

The pandemic did help reduced casualties, with a drop of around 1,000 in 2019 and 2020. Drivers are being called upon to be more vigilante in the dark, cold mornings and night, especially around school opening hours, nearby where the children walk and get dropped off/picked up.

59% of the total number of annual accidents happen in the winter months, between 7.30am-8.30am, which is 43% spike from the months (March to September) compared to the average month.

Strangely enough the closer the children are to the school, the less accidents as many steps have been taken to slow vehicles down with traffic calming measures, including speed humps and 20mph speed zones, around school entrances, etc.

Sadly, not all children escape uninjured as nearly a quarter of the incidents (24% or 2,397 children) have resulted in serious injury or death, compared to children in all other age groups (22%).

For the South West, there were 564 road traffic accidents involving children, per 10,000 children (10.9%), which is 20% proportion of road traffic accidents as serious in the primary school age. This compares to London at 16% and the highest, excluding Scotland and Wales, is Yorkshire & The Humber at 28%.