Road traffic collision statistics

We collect information about road traffic collisions and use this to make our roads safer.

This helps us direct our work in the most efficient and effective manner. We compile and validate this information together with the Department for Transport.

Most recent data

The tables below capture year-on-year data about crashes and casualties in Leeds. The disruption caused to travel patterns by the COVID-19 pandemic means that there were significant reductions in casualty numbers in 2020 and 2021 across the country, and this is reflected in the data for Leeds.

In April 2021, West Yorkshire Police (WYP) changed the system being used to record road traffic collisions. The system now being used, called CRASH, automatically assigns a severity classification to each casualty according to the injuries recorded by the reporting police officer, whereas the previous system allowed the reporting officer to specify the severity directly. Where CRASH has been previously rolled out elsewhere in the country, there has generally been a significant increase in the proportion of reported casualties which are classified as serious. This seems to be being replicated across West Yorkshire. We will continue to review the data with colleagues at WYP and the West Yorkshire councils.

The new system ensures a more consistent classification of severity but raises issues with presenting long terms trends in the numbers of casualties of different severities. To address this, the Department for Transport has published datasets in which the casualty severities have been adjusted to account for the change to the new system, and the DfT recommends that the adjusted data be used when making long-term comparisons. The data presented in this report for collisions occurring prior to April 2021 has been adjusted in accordance with the DfT’s recommendations.

• there are three broad categories of injury severity: slight, serious and fatal
• the most catastrophic injuries (fatal and serious) are jointly referred to as 'killed or seriously injured' (KSI)
• 'All severity' injuries refer to KSIs plus slight injuries

Personal-injury collisions on roads in Leeds, 2018 to 2023

There were 1,463 personal-injury collisions recorded in Leeds in 2023. This includes all collisions resulting in death or injury occurring within the highway and reported to the police, in which one or more vehicles are involved. The figure for 2023 was lower than the preceding year. The total for 2022 was above the average for 2017-2019 (1,569). There were 11 fatal collisions in Leeds in 2023, which was the lowest since 2020.

Fatal and serious injury casualties on roads in Leeds, 2018 to 2023

There were 1,887 people injured in collisions recorded in Leeds in 2023 – note that this is higher than the number of collisions reported above, as individual collisions can result in more than one casualty. This was lower than the previous year, and was lower than the average for 2017-2019 (2,034). 13 people were killed in collisions in Leeds in 2023, which is less than the previous year, and less than the average for 2017-19 (21).

Fatal and serious injury casualties by road-user, 2018 to 2023

Around half of those killed or seriously injured are not users of enclosed vehicles such as cars and goods vehicles, but are pedestrians (23% of all KSI in Leeds in 2023), cyclists (15%), or motorcyclists (12%). Crashes are nearly twice as likely to inflict fatal or serious injuries on these road-users.

2018 to 2020

*Some user groups included in the total figures are not listed in the table.

2021 to 2023

Get more detailed data

You can download the raw data files from Data Mill North. To easily analyse the data, you can use the Department for Transport (DfT) interactive dashboard.

Annual report

We produce an annual report on crashes and casualties on public roads in Leeds. Email collisionstudies@leeds.gov.uk for a copy.

Find out more about our Vision Zero ambition

Find out more about the Leeds Safe Roads Vision Zero 2040 Strategy and the Leeds Transport Strategy.

Download the raw data files from Data Mill North.

Get in touch by email: visionzero@leeds.gov.uk or collisionstudies@leeds.gov.uk.

Follow us on social media: @connectingleeds.