Pedal Cyclist Casualties
GB from 1927. London from 1979. (2025 estimated from January to October TfL data.) All rates per billion miles. Toggle between deaths only and KSI, between GB and London, and between raw counts and the rate per billion miles.
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. NB: STATS19 and TfL figures differ slightly (TfL applies its own validation); the join at 1989 may show a small discontinuity.
[B] Adjusted sources. 2010-2016: TfL back-cast (Casualties in Greater London 2024 Data Annex Table 2). Ratios vary: 1.59x (2012) to 1.94x (2014). 2017+: Met fully on COPA, adj ~ unadj. Pre-2010: Estimated at 1.774x (mean of TfL's 2010-2014 ratios).
[C] Deaths need no adjustment. London 1979-1988 from STATS19 (Met + City of London); 1989+ from TfL/RAS0402. Killed counts differ by 1-3/year between sources.
[D] Miles from TRA0403: GB and London both from 1993. 2025 London est. 0.77bn (+10% on 2024). All rates per billion miles.
[E] 2025 (est.) KSI from TfL dashboard Jan-Oct, annualised via 2024 seasonal pattern. Killed pro-rata 12/10. Toggle on or off above.
[F] Under-reporting. Cyclist serious injuries are significantly under-reported to police. Actual figures are likely higher than even the adjusted series.
Common questions
- Are pedal cyclist deaths increasing or decreasing?
- In GB, 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.
- 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.
- Has cycling become safer?
- Yes. The casualty rate per billion miles has declined in both GB and London over the long run, even as the absolute amount of cycling has grown.
- Why are GB and London KSI figures adjusted?
- Police forces changed their injury-severity reporting system around 2004, inflating apparent serious-injury counts. An adjustment factor is applied to pre-change years to make the series comparable. The chart shows both adjusted and unadjusted on request.
- What is KSI?
- Killed and Seriously Injured. DfT's standard casualty metric.