Gauge

Pedal Cyclist Casualties Great Britain & London

Pedal cyclist deaths and serious injuries in Great Britain (from 1927) and London (from 1979), tracked alongside cycling miles (plus cycle journeys for London). The counts show how many people were hurt; the rates show how the risk per mile and per journey has changed.

Cycling has become safer over the long run. The casualty rate per billion miles has fallen in both Great Britain and London even as cycling has grown.

Data last updated 7 June 2026 Sources: DfT STATS19 (RAS0101, RAS0102, RAS0402)DfT Road Traffic Estimates (TRA0403)TfL cycling data

Data notes

[A] As reported (unadjusted). London 1979-1988: STATS19 open data filtered by Met + City of London police forces. London 1989-2009: TfL Datastore. London 2010-2024: RAS0402/TfL Data Annex. GB: RAS0102 from 1979. STATS19 and TfL figures differ slightly (TfL applies its own validation); the join at 1989 may show a small discontinuity.

[B] Adjusted KSI. 2010-2016: TfL back-cast (Casualties in Greater London Data Annex Table 2; ratios vary 1.59x in 2012 to 1.94x in 2014). 2017+: Met on COPA, adjusted approximately equals reported. Pre-2010: estimated at 1.774x reported (mean of TfL's 2010-2014 ratios).

[C] Deaths. London 1979-1988 from STATS19 (Met + City of London); 1989+ from TfL/RAS0402. GB from RAS0101. Killed counts differ by 1-3 per year between sources.

[D] Miles. DfT TRA0403 (region traffic by vehicle type, published May 2026): GB and London both from 1993. London 2025 = 0.76bn.

[E] Coverage. Deaths: GB 1927 to 2024, London 1979 to 2025. KSI: both from 1979 (GB to 2024, London to 2025). KSI rate per billion miles: GB from 2004, London from 1993. KSI rate per million journeys (London): from 2000.

[F] Journeys (London). Daily cycle journey stages from TfL Travel in London 2025 (Active travel trends), annualised for the per-journey rate. 2020 and 2021 are blank because TfL's travel survey was disrupted by COVID; TfL flags 2000-2014 as low quality.

Common questions

Are pedal cyclist deaths increasing or decreasing?

In Great Britain, total annual cycling deaths have fallen substantially since 1927 even as cycling has grown. London deaths peaked in the 1980s and have since fallen, despite cycling miles rising sharply. Source: DfT STATS19.

Why use casualty rate per billion miles, not raw counts?

Raw counts mix exposure (how much cycling there is) with safety (how dangerous each mile is). The rate per billion miles isolates the safety trend. Mileage is from DfT Road Traffic Estimates (TRA0403).

Has cycling become safer?

Yes. The casualty rate per billion miles has declined in both Great Britain and London over the long run, even as the absolute amount of cycling has grown.

Why are GB and London KSI figures adjusted?

Not because cycling changed, but because the recording did. Police forces moved from an officer judging injury severity on the scene to injury-based systems (CRASH and COPA) that assign severity automatically from a defined list of injuries. The Metropolitan Police adopted COPA in November 2016, which roughly doubled the number of serious cyclist casualties recorded even though the underlying risk had not changed. To keep years comparable across this break, the DfT developed an adjustment method (interim report 2018, finalised July 2019) that estimates what earlier years would have shown under the new system. This chart can show adjusted or as-reported figures. Source: DfT, Reported road casualties Great Britain.

What is KSI?

Killed and Seriously Injured, the DfT standard casualty metric.