Should car accidents have more prominent reporting?

[styles]

Not affecting your argument, but the other "magic roundabout" is in Hemel Hempstead, not MK, and features six entries vs Swindon's mere five. Milton Keynes may be the city of roundabouts, but for numbers not rarity value

Yes you're right, Hemel Hempstead. In an inverse-London centric fashion I often confuse places in the south east

 

[JohnMcL7]

It may just be my invalid impression, but it seems to me that when road accidents do get reported on, it’s with a subliminal message of “it’s tragic but these things happen” whereas with rail there’s a greater emphasis on cause etc - without stressing that the reason behind the difference is the fact that the British rail safety record is second to very few (any?).

That's my impression as well and not just with reporting either, just a general attitude. I was flying with a work colleague on an Atlantic flight and I was puzzled when he asked beforehand what did I think about my chances getting home, he explained basically what did I think about the chances of there being a plane crash. He wasn't a nervous flyer and did a lot of leisure travel so I replied I had no worries about the plane but more concern about the drive afterwards. In a more extreme case a motorcyclist I was talking with was more concerned about a plane crash than a road accident.

I think there's a clear difference between road and rail/air accidents since with road crashes it's unfortunately frequently a driver to blame who may have broken many existing rules. The BBC has a good series on road crash investigations and unsurprisingly alcohol, unroadworthy vehicles and bad driving are common causes:

The Crash Detectives

Every collision leaves a mark. Inside the cordon with Gwent Police's dedicated forensic teams, from crash site to custody suite, as they work to get justice for grieving families.

www.bbc.co.uk

There was a particularly chilling case where a Fiesta had gone off a country road then rolled through some woodland before coming to a halt. This triggered the car to make a call to a Ford emergency service where the car provided the exact location of the car then tried to connect the operator to the occupants in the car, however the car could recognise there was no response and advised the operator to call the emergency services and again provided the location. The rescuers easily found the car in the darkness because it had put the main lights and hazards on but both the teenage occupants were dead. Although the modern safety systems of the car had given them the best chance of surviving, neither occupant was wearing their seatbelt which meant the full airbag system couldn't functionally properly otherwise they'd have likely walked away. They had been at a party and the driver was found to have alcohol and other drugs in their system and simply lost control of the car on a normal section of road.

 

[DelW]

I think there's a clear difference between road and rail/air accidents since with road crashes it's unfortunately frequently a driver to blame who may have broken many existing rules. The BBC has a good series on road crash investigations and unsurprisingly alcohol, unroadworthy vehicles and bad driving are common causes:

The Crash Detectives

Every collision leaves a mark. Inside the cordon with Gwent Police's dedicated forensic teams, from crash site to custody suite, as they work to get justice for grieving families.

www.bbc.co.uk

That series was quite salutary in showing the culpability and sheer stupidity of those who caused most of the collisions shown. Sadly they weren't always the ones who suffered the worst consequences.

There was a particularly chilling case where a Fiesta had gone off a country road then rolled through some woodland before coming to a halt. This triggered the car to make a call to a Ford emergency service where the car provided the exact location of the car then tried to connect the operator to the occupants in the car, however the car could recognise there was no response and advised the operator to call the emergency services and again provided the location. The rescuers easily found the car in the darkness because it had put the main lights and hazards on but both the teenage occupants were dead.

I think that technology is amazing. Another of the cases shown in the series involved two Germans touring Britain on a motor bike, which hit a patch of loose gravel and crashed on the A40/A449 junction near Raglan. Both rider and passenger were knocked unconscious, but the bike's system called a BMW emergency centre in Germany who established its location and called police and ambulance to the scene. The riders were hospitalised but expected to make a full recovery.

In contrast, a decade or more ago, when leaves fell in the autumn, drivers reported seeing a crashed car well off the road near the A3 near Guildford. When police attended, they found that it had been there some months, with the driver's remains still in his seat. The driver had simply vanished on a drive to Portsmouth, but no one had seen the crash and trees meant that the car wasn't visible from the road. With no indication of what had happened, no one knew where to look, but the automatic emergency call technology might have saved the driver if he'd survived the initial impact.

 

[styles]

Well yes, it's a known phenomenon.

If somebody is on a bicycle, the headline will often report them as a 'cyclist'.

When a driver hits somebody, the headline will often report it as 'car hits X'

The one in a motor vehicle is almost dehumanised, as if cars drive themselves into other road users.

The University of Westminster worked with a number of media groups, industry reps, etc to try and draw up guidelines about how road collisions are reported: https://www.rc-rg.com/_files/ugd/c05c10_3f73627e43894c8496f379a2b9e84fd3.pdf (for admins - I won't post a text to accompany this as it's a long document, text-reader accessible).

Unfortunately this is all voluntary and even some of the original contributors to the guidelines don't follow them.

BBC London front news right now:

"Man due in court charged with attempted murder after car hit pedestrians"

Man due in court charged with attempted murder after car hit pedestrians

The man has been remanded in custody following a collision in Ealing, west London, on Saturday.

www.bbc.co.uk

Or as reported elsewhere:

"Driver arrested after car ploughs into pedestrians in London" - Telegraph

"Man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after ‘car drives into pedestrians’ in London" - Independent

"Man charged with attempted murder after several people hit by car in Ealing Broadway" - Sky

Even if you go back further:

"Attempted murder arrest after car hits pedestrians on Argyll Street" - BBC News

"Attempted murder charge after car hits pedestrians" - BBC News

This is like saying, "Man charged with murder after bullet hits pedestrian."

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Should car accidents have more prominent reporting in the media? The lack of reporting of car accidents (even those leading to death) means that people have an unrealistically good perception of car safety compared to other modes of transport. If so, how can this be implemented?

Yes - unequivocally.

 

[Sonic1234]

Roundabouts, as long as they’re respected, do give motorists not on the “main flow” more of a chance.

That's the problem. Should we be slowing down long-distance trunk roads for an odd vehicle transporting someone from their new build Barratt box to Sainsbury's? I'd say the main flow is of far more importance. They slow down the main flow, even if they can proceed when they reach the roundabout.

Roundabouts are absolutely fine when it's a junction with a decent flow on each of the arms, but there are examples where the joining roads are insignificant.

 

[styles]

That's the problem. Should we be slowing down long-distance trunk roads for an odd vehicle transporting someone from their new build Barratt box to Sainsbury's? I'd say the main flow is of far more importance. They slow down the main flow, even if they can proceed when they reach the roundabout.

Roundabouts are absolutely fine when it's a junction with a decent flow on each of the arms, but there are examples where the joining roads are insignificant.

This is a false equivalence imo. Without roundabouts you wouldn't just drive through a junction - you'd need to replace it with a 4-way signalled crossroads in many cases. These slow traffic down significantly more, and have a worse safety record. It is worth bearing in mind that if a collision occurs on a roundabout or crossroad junction it can be very disruptive, so the increased likelihood of them occurring on non-roundabout crossroads also adds to average delays.

 

[D1537]

This is a false equivalence imo. Without roundabouts you wouldn't just drive through a junction - you'd need to replace it with a 4-way signalled crossroads in many cases. These slow traffic down significantly more, and have a worse safety record. It is worth bearing in mind that if a collision occurs on a roundabout or crossroad junction it can be very disruptive, so the increased likelihood of them occurring on non-roundabout crossroads also adds to average delays.

And if you make them a non-signalled crossroads it then becomes very difficult to turn right onto the main flow (or indeed to go straight across), leading to traffic building up behind the right-turner and people "going for it" when there isn't much of a gap in the traffic ... thus leading to accidents.

 

[JohnofWessex]

I suggest that

1. Like new railway installations there needs to be a proper independent sign off on new road works
2. We need a rolling programme of safety inspections on existing roads starting with the highest risk with a mandatory power to demand improvement

 

[The Ham]

That's the problem. Should we be slowing down long-distance trunk roads for an odd vehicle transporting someone from their new build Barratt box to Sainsbury's? I'd say the main flow is of far more importance. They slow down the main flow, even if they can proceed when they reach the roundabout.

Roundabouts are absolutely fine when it's a junction with a decent flow on each of the arms, but there are examples where the joining roads are insignificant.

As others have highlighted not having a roundabout may slow the main flow down by more than the roundabout.

For a small development a simple t-junction would mean right turners blocking the main road in one direction.

For larger junctions, if the main road is fairly busy, then signals may be needed and so they wound slow down the main road for some cars significantly more tab the roundabout.

Even a mid sized development would likely need a signal crossing for pedestrians and so slow down the main road, something which isn't needed ad much with roundabouts as there's splitter islands to aid with crossing the road.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

This is a false equivalence imo. Without roundabouts you wouldn't just drive through a junction - you'd need to replace it with a 4-way signalled crossroads in many cases. These slow traffic down significantly more, and have a worse safety record. It is worth bearing in mind that if a collision occurs on a roundabout or crossroad junction it can be very disruptive, so the increased likelihood of them occurring on non-roundabout crossroads also adds to average delays.

Also roundabout collisions tend to be glancing, as opposed to the "T-bone" or head-on collisions which you'd get at a crossroads.

It's all well and good to say that road incidents should get more coverage, but how do you mandate the media to give those events more coverage? Incidents on the railways get nationwide coverage precisely because they're unusual events.
A particularly big incident on the roads will be covered nationwide, such as the M5 pile-up near Taunton on bonfire night, or the tragic incident a couple of years ago near Wakefield in which a car collided with a motorcycle killing the entire family in the car and the couple on the bike... But outlets will only cover incidents they believe there's a demand for, or in the case of the BBC a public interest in. There's not much value in BBC Look East covering a crash in Lancashire, unless it's a particularly big crash or involved people from that region.

I'm not convinced that more coverage would improve safety in any measurable way either. Sure, if I read a news story about a crash that's killed or injured someone then I will want to know more about it so I can maybe learn from it- and I'm sure I'm not alone in that... but I'm not sure it's measurable in a way that can be extrapolated.

 

[MP33]

Or the case of the vehicle that entered a river, killing a number of members of the same family. It turned out that the driver had modified the vehicle to add extra seats. Resulting in the vehicle becoming no longer roadworthy. That was significant, as lessons could be learnt.

 

[warthogsoveruk]

Or the case of the vehicle that entered a river, killing a number of members of the same family. It turned out that the driver had modified the vehicle to add extra seats. Resulting in the vehicle becoming no longer roadworthy. That was significant, as lessons could be learnt.

I remember many years ago, the news on the tele, then just ITV and BBC, would regularly report the death toll on the roads over a bank holiday weekend. They stopped doing that, I think because it was deemed to be too morbid.

 

[The Ham]

I remember many years ago, the news on the tele, then just ITV and BBC, would regularly report the death toll on the roads over a bank holiday weekend. They stopped doing that, I think because it was deemed to be too morbid.

Depending on how long ago depends on how bad it was, whist currently it averages 5 a day, in the late 90's it averaged 10 a day, whilst in 1975 it was averagung around 18 a day.

For 3 days that could be (and bearing in mind long distance travel on roads unfamiliar and with fewer motorways could mean that it could be higher than the average) that it could have been over 30 deaths.

Potentially in 1970's maybe reaching over 60 deaths being recorded.

For comparison, in recent years it could be around 15.

 

[90019]

That's my impression as well and not just with reporting either, just a general attitude. I was flying with a work colleague on an Atlantic flight and I was puzzled when he asked beforehand what did I think about my chances getting home, he explained basically what did I think about the chances of there being a plane crash. He wasn't a nervous flyer and did a lot of leisure travel so I replied I had no worries about the plane but more concern about the drive afterwards. In a more extreme case a motorcyclist I was talking with was more concerned about a plane crash than a road accident.

I wonder if part of it is due to who is in control of a particular mode of transport.

With the car or bike, the person being asked is likely to be the one driving or riding and may have the subconscious bias that because they feel that they can do something to avoid a collision, it's less likely to happen to them.
But when they're on the plane with someone else in control that feeling isn't there, so despite it being far less likely to occur, an accident can feel more likely due to having no ability to stop it happening.

 

[The Ham]

I wonder if part of it is due to who is in control of a particular mode of transport.

With the car or bike, the person being asked is likely to be the one driving or riding and may have the subconscious bias that because they feel that they can do something to avoid a collision, it's less likely to happen to them.
But when they're on the plane with someone else in control that feeling isn't there, so despite it being far less likely to occur, an accident can feel more likely due to having no ability to stop it happening.

Also, there's sometimes an element of over confidence by car drivers in their abilities.

When a fair level of the reason that they've not had a collision is down to luck rather than skill.

 

[DM352]

Roundabouts have their place with busy cross flows but at the risk of going off topic, feel developers put one in on trunk roads as a minimal viable solution vs. a t junction or overpass. This comes along with the speed reductions.A lot of this is talked about on the uk sabre roads site.

What works well in Canada with traffic lights is on the main right of way with a less busy road, there is a prepare to stop flashing amber when red like the school sign about 500m before the junction if red.

Back to the orignal question, think collisions should be reported but with more information like driver had medical emergency, driver speeding with no insurance, drug driving, etc.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Roundabouts have their place with busy cross flows but at the risk of going off topic, feel developers put one in on trunk roads as a minimal viable solution vs. a t junction or overpass. This comes along with the speed reductions.A lot of this is talked about on the uk sabre roads site.

What works well in Canada with traffic lights is on the main right of way with a less busy road, there is a prepare to stop flashing amber when red like the school sign about 500m before the junction if red.

Back to the orignal question, think collisions should be reported but with more information like driver had medical emergency, driver speeding with no insurance, drug driving, etc.

That sort of information usually comes out later, and Police can't release that information if criminal proceedings are likely to follow.

 

[Egg Centric]

Also, there's sometimes an element of over confidence by car drivers in their abilities.

When a fair level of the reason that they've not had a collision is down to luck rather than skill.

One can understand why, and I'm not sure what a politically acceptable solution would be. Basically the only ways for taking on road driving forward are IAM and ROSPA (both based on Roadcraft) and subsequently variations on HPC. If we adopted my preferred solution of graduated licences allowing discretion over limits then these might be clearly objectively useful but otherwise they're basically nerdy pursuits to a lot of people. And no one will ever relax speed limits for humans in the way I want, at least until android drivers exist. Might as well hope for new third rail!

It's quite amusing the only people who have clear feedback they're terrible drivers are the absolute worst.

 

[Harpo]

Publicity won’t change the human behaviours involved in driving but compulsory refresher training or competence assessment would - Its complete absence in up to 53 years of driving (i.e. 17 to 70) is madness.

 

[ainsworth74]

Publicity won’t change the human behaviours involved in driving but compulsory refresher training or competence assessment would - Its complete absence in up to 53 years of driving (i.e. 17 to 70) is madness.

Yes that one has always struck me as crackers. We've already got such a backlog of tests I'm not sure that there's capacity in the system to introduce competency assessments for everyone (even if it was very intermittent say every ten years or something aligned with renewing your photocard licence) but I do think that some sort of compulsory refresher training wouldn't go amiss. I found my Speed Awareness course I did after I allegedly went a bit too quickly in a 30 once was actually quite a useful and interesting afternoon.

Having to do some sort of refresher training every so often I feel would be quite a valuable addition and wouldn't be too onerous a commitment to place on people. Especially as the Highway Code does change from time to time and such changes are very poorly communicated and seem to often be totally unknown to people.

For instance the 2022 change/clarification that means that traffic should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross road into which or from which you are turning. Lots of drivers seem oblivious to that one. Indeed I had a lady get very irritated with me for daring to cross a road into which she wanted to turn despite the fact I had started to cross before she even reached the turning (I'm sure her young son in the back of the car giving me the middle finger throughout our conversation is no indication of her general personality at all...).

 

[JohnofWessex]

I suggest that we need to start with the clearly not incompetent but unwilling to drive safely.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

For instance the 2022 change/clarification that means that traffic should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross road into which or from which you are turning. Lots of drivers seem oblivious to that one. Indeed I had a lady get very irritated with me for daring to cross a road into which she wanted to turn despite the fact I had started to cross before she even reached the turning (I'm sure her young son in the back of the car giving me the middle finger throughout our conversation is no indication of her general personality at all...).

Lots of pedestrians are also oblivious to that one. Several times I've stopped to allow pedestrians across at junctions and roundabouts (when it's safe to do so), gestured clearly, and been met with a blank stare!

 

[Sonic1234]

but compulsory refresher training or competence assessment would - Its complete absence in up to 53 years of driving (i.e. 17 to 70) is madness.

Deep down, no one wants this because people are worried they will lose their licence. The Government not enacting retesting is them delivering the will of the people (for once), partly also due to the admin burden of doing so as well.

 

[Harpo]

Deep down, no one wants this because people are worried they will lose their licence. The Government not enacting retesting is them delivering the will of the people (for once), partly also due to the admin burden of doing so as well.

So we shouldn’t do because it might weed out the incompetence that causes accidents and might be difficult?

 

[coppercapped]

There are very rarely car accidents; collisions and incidents yes but rarely accidents. The road safety bodies have stopped using the term and I'm surprised RAIB hasnt changed its name. The term accident gives the impression it was an unforeseen act of God and no-one is to blame or there are no lessons to be learnt. We need HSE to step up and investigate all fatal road traffic collisions involving someone travelling in the course of work, which account for around a third of such incidents. If we had canage on that level in any other workplace it would have been shut down years ago.

I am not arguing that the number of road traffic collisions, deaths and injuries occurring on the roads currently is acceptable but one should reflect on the absolute numbers and the general trends over the years before writing about 'carnage'.

In 1926 there were fewer than one million cars on the road, but the number of deaths was around 5,000 per year. Now there are some 37 million cars registered but the death toll has fallen to some 1,700 per year, less than half the number 100 years ago, with a forty-fold increase in the number of cars.

Around 1966 the number of deaths peaked at 6,000 per year; the trend has been downwards ever since but has plateaued over the past dozen years. A graphical representation of road deaths against year can be found on Wikipedia at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...g&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original. The graph is below:



Not perfect at the moment - but so much better than it was.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I would like to see the number of road deaths published more prominently. Perhaps by the 10th of the following month.

 

[coppercapped]

I'm not sure what this would bring. As the Wikipedia graph shows the number of deaths has been slowly declining since 2012 from around 1,800 per year to just over 1,500 in 2025 according to https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...alties-great-britain-provisional-results-2025. This report gives the following details:

In reported road collisions in Great Britain in 2025, there were an estimated:

1,556 fatalities, a decline of 3% compared to 2024
29,910 KSI casualties, an increase of 4% compared to 2024
127,870 casualties of all severities, little change compared to 2024

So, the roads are slowly getting safer in terms of deaths which will be averaging around 130 per month. Some months will be better, some worse. Very few people get in a car with the intention of killing or maiming someone so I don't think publishing a number which will essentially stay constant from month to month will have any effect whatsoever.

 

[styles]

Not that this should be a reason to do nothing to improve road safety, but if the table on this Wikipedia page is to be believed, there's only 8 countries in the world with fewer road deaths per capita than the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate.

Given that Monaco has a population roughly that of Glossopdale, I probably wouldn't pay much attention to them mind.

Country/region	Per 100,000
Monaco	0.0
Maldives	1.6
Japan	2.1
Singapore	2.1
Norway	2.1
Sweden	2.1
Iceland	2.3
Andorra	2.5
United Kingdom	2.6

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I would like to see the number of road deaths published more prominently. Perhaps by the 10th of the following month.

That's actually workable too, unlike the earlier suggestion that would require a complete reworking of the legal system and probably also the invention of time travel.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Aug 2026 ==

One can understand why, and I'm not sure what a politically acceptable solution would be. Basically the only ways for taking on road driving forward are IAM and ROSPA (both based on Roadcraft) and subsequently variations on HPC. If we adopted my preferred solution of graduated licences allowing discretion over limits then these might be clearly objectively useful but otherwise they're basically nerdy pursuits to a lot of people. And no one will ever relax speed limits for humans in the way I want, at least until android drivers exist. Might as well hope for new third rail!

It's quite amusing the only people who have clear feedback they're terrible drivers are the absolute worst.

Just for clarity, are you suggesting that we have different speed limits depending on how "qualified" a driver is? So for example you're allowed to do 80 on a motorway if you've gone through the IAM course?
How would you enforce that? Sounds like it's just an extra layer of complication and paperwork for traffic cops to deal with.
Having two otherwise identical vehicles with different speed limits due to the person behind the wheel sounds absurd and difficult to enforce.