County council · England

Road risk in Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire ranks 128 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Below averageRisk score 43.9/100ONS code E10000003

Police recorded 1,018 injury collisions in Cambridgeshire in 2025, hurting 1,414 people, of whom 311 were killed or seriously injured and 26 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 63.9 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 21% below the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 1,018 in 2025
People hurt: 1,414 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 311
Killed: 26
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 63.9 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 295.3 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 358 (recorded: 311)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 338.1 a year (recorded: 295.3)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 43.4 — rank 57
Population: 716,983
Risk score: 43.9/100 — rank 128 of 192

Compiled by Stephen Hall, Data lead, Swift Assist. Source: DfT STATS19 and DfT road traffic estimates (2025), OGL v3. Updated 2026-10-08.

Direction of travel

Five years of collisions in Cambridgeshire

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were broadly flat, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 1,151 collisions.

Collisions per year in Cambridgeshire

2025: 1,018 (down 1.7% on the year before) · peak 1,151 in 2023 · +0.8% across the period

Axis clipped to the data range to show year-on-year movement.

Two ways of measuring

Cambridgeshire looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Cambridgeshire ranks 57. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 128 — a difference of 71 places.

That gap runs the other way: relative to the traffic its roads carry, Cambridgeshire does less harm than its casualty count per resident implies. Places with heavy local travel and few through routes tend to look worse per head than the volume of driving warrants. Neither number is the true one. Which you should use depends on whether you are asking how safe it is to live somewhere or how safe it is to drive there.

Who is being hurt

Pedestrians, cyclists and riders in Cambridgeshire

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 1,018 collisions in Cambridgeshire, the three groups appear 443 times between them — an involvement rate of 43.5%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	105	10.3%
Cyclists	202	19.8%
Motorcyclists	136	13.4%

A single collision can involve more than one of these groups and is then counted in each row, so the rows do not add up to a share of the total.

Darkness, weather and the time of year

When collisions happen in Cambridgeshire

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Cambridgeshire’s own shares over 3,205 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Cambridgeshire	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	26.1%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	10.5%	6.3%	well above the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	25%	24.5%	close to the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	2.1%	1.4%	well above the national figure

On the darkness share, Cambridgeshire ranks 143 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Cambridgeshire run 0.7% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 818 collisions against 824.

What this does not tell you

A share is not a rate. A high darkness share means darkness accounts for more of Cambridgeshire’s collisions — not that its roads are more dangerous overall. Read it alongside the casualties-per-mile-driven figure above.
Condition is recorded, not tested. The officer records the surface and light level at the scene. It is an observation, not a measurement, and it is not a finding that the condition caused the collision.
Exposure is not controlled for. Fewer people travel at 3am than at 3pm, so a collision in darkness is drawn from a smaller pool of journeys. Without hourly traffic counts, these shares describe when collisions happen rather than how risky an hour is.

Every authority compared on the same measures: winter road risk across Britain.

Inside the county

Where the casualties fall across Cambridgeshire’s districts

Cambridgeshire is the highway authority, but the collisions are spread unevenly across the 5 districts within it.

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
Huntingdonshire	292	409	89
South Cambridgeshire	269	419	94
Cambridge	215	249	52
Fenland	129	185	41
East Cambridgeshire	113	152	35

Benchmark

Cambridgeshire against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Cambridgeshire, but most of them are lower-tier districts that we do not publish as authority pages — they are not highway authorities, so their road figures belong to the county above them. Rather than compare against pages that do not exist, these are the authorities nearest to Cambridgeshire in the national table. That is a weaker comparison and we would rather say so than imply a like-for-like match we cannot actually make. Within this group Cambridgeshire is 12 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 67.5.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Kent	89.6	43.8	129
Herefordshire, County of	77.7	44.2	127
County Durham	70.3	44.5	126
Shropshire	68.4	41.9	131
Bracknell Forest	67.5	44.7	124
Salford	67.5	42.2	130
Cambridgeshire (this page)	63.9	43.9	128
Hampshire	62.7	41.2	132
Oxfordshire	53.8	44.6	125

National position

Cambridgeshire against its closest comparators

Cambridgeshire sits 128 of 192 nationally, and 105 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
126	County Durham	44.5	70.3
127	Herefordshire, County of	44.2	77.7
128	Cambridgeshire (this page)	43.9	63.9
129	Kent	43.8	89.6
130	Salford	42.2	67.5

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Cambridgeshire, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Cambridgeshire?

In the latest official DfT figures, 1,018 road collisions in Cambridgeshire injured or killed 1,414 people, 311 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 63.9 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Cambridgeshire 128 of 192 authorities on our combined score, where 1 is the highest risk. The score weighs that rate alongside who is being hurt, the five-year trend and how often a serious collision proves fatal, so the rank is not the rate alone.

Are road casualties in Cambridgeshire rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Cambridgeshire were broadly flat, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 1,151 collisions. Year-to-year movement in a single authority is noisy, so the five-year direction carries more than any single year's change.

Who is being hurt on Cambridgeshire's roads?

In Cambridgeshire there were 105 collisions involving pedestrians, 202 involving cyclists and 136 involving motorcyclists, out of 1,018 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 43.5%, though a collision involving two of those groups is counted in both figures, so it is a comparable index rather than a clean share.

Who is responsible for road safety in Cambridgeshire?

Cambridgeshire is a county council, and is the highway authority for its own roads. That means it sets local speed limits, designs junctions and crossings, and decides safety scheme spending. Motorways and most trunk roads are managed separately by National Highways in England, Transport Scotland, or the Welsh Government, so the worst road in an area is often not the council's to change. Enforcement sits with the local police force.

Where does this data come from?

DfT STATS19, the record police complete at the scene of every injury collision, published annually under the Open Government Licence, combined with DfT's own road traffic estimates for the mileage denominator. Collision, casualty and KSI counts on this page are for 2025; only the trend compares 2021–2025. STATS19 counts collisions police attended and recorded, so collisions never reported do not appear, and under-reporting is known to be worst for cyclists and for slight injuries.

What this means for you

What actually changes the odds in Cambridgeshire

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Cambridgeshire’s own figures above, each with the number that prompted it. Every guide explains how the thing works before it suggests buying anything, and most cost less than a third of a typical insurance excess.

Helmet camera

£50–£200

20% of collisions in Cambridgeshire involve someone on a bike. In a disputed pull-out, footage from the rider's viewpoint is what settles liability.

How it works →

Alarmed disc lock

£20–£50

Motorcyclists are in 13% of Cambridgeshire's collisions, and bikes are also lifted rather than ridden away. An alarmed disc lock covers the theft half for about £30.

How it works →

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