Using Governmental statistics



Hertfordshire fatal and serious injuries to cyclists- slowly declining

Every time there is an injury on the roads it's recorded - this is called the Stats 19 dataset. It's public data and available to all, but like most datasets the raw data is dense and needs mapping and sifting to understand what it's showing.

STACC uses the data to identify roads and junctions whch are particularly hazardous, in the past we've produced maps to use to show Councils where the problems are and draw people's attention to where safety measures are needed.

This has always been a bit of a tricky job to do, needing some database and GIS skills to pull it all together- luckily was have people who can do this.

The Department for Transport has put together a useful website which produces maps and graphs showing all sorts of analysis of the data. If you're interested it's well worth a look.

Accident maps are here- you can select Highway Authority, year (2005-2011), severity, age band and vehicle type and you can zoom right in to street level. It's a Google map, so you can change to a satellite view and use street view to get road-level photos. Here's a screenshot of central St Albans for 2005 to 2011- thanksfully we have had no fatal accidents in this period. You may think this is a lot of crashes but compare it to the other transport modes. Zoom in a bit and you can see concentrations around various junctions and roads.

Bike accidents Central St Albans 2005-2011

There are plenty of other graphs and indicators here.

Hertsdirect has some stats here but they're not mapped and aren't in much detail.

Ride safe, don't be a statistic but don't be scared either.