Unitary authority · England

Road risk in Central Bedfordshire

Central Bedfordshire ranks 145 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Below averageRisk score 38.3/100ONS code E06000056

Police recorded 475 injury collisions in Central Bedfordshire in 2025, hurting 688 people, of whom 113 were killed or seriously injured and 12 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 64.2 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 20% below the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 475 in 2025
People hurt: 688 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 113
Killed: 12
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 64.2 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 122.7 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 139 (recorded: 113)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 141.7 a year (recorded: 122.7)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 35.1 — rank 101
Population: 321,605
Risk score: 38.3/100 — rank 145 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 Central Bedfordshire

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were broadly flat, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 580 collisions.

Collisions per year in Central Bedfordshire

2025: 475 (down 6.9% on the year before) · peak 580 in 2023 · +0.8% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Central Bedfordshire looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Central Bedfordshire ranks 101. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 145 — a difference of 44 places.

That gap runs the other way: relative to the traffic its roads carry, Central Bedfordshire 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.

Vehicle crime · year ending June 2026

Vehicle crime in Central Bedfordshire

4.38

offences per 1,000 residents

1,385

offences recorded, 12 months

116

of 287 areas, worst first

Central Bedfordshire recorded 4.38 vehicle offences per 1,000 residents, below the England and Wales rate of 5.04.

Rate calculated from 1,385 offences and a population of 315,900 (ONS mid-2024), both taken from the same ONS release. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Office for National Statistics, Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables, year ending June 2026; police recorded crime collected by the Home Office.

Who is being hurt

Pedestrians, cyclists and riders in Central Bedfordshire

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 475 collisions in Central Bedfordshire, the three groups appear 126 times between them — an involvement rate of 26.5%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	49	10.3%
Cyclists	30	6.3%
Motorcyclists	47	9.9%

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 Central Bedfordshire

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Central Bedfordshire’s own shares over 1,565 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Central Bedfordshire	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	28.4%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	10.4%	6.3%	well above the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	26.6%	24.5%	close to the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	1.6%	1.4%	above the national figure

On the darkness share, Central Bedfordshire ranks 84 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Central Bedfordshire run 4.4% higher from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 407 collisions against 390.

What this does not tell you

A share is not a rate. A high darkness share means darkness accounts for more of Central Bedfordshire’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.

Benchmark

Central Bedfordshire against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Central Bedfordshire, 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 Central Bedfordshire 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 Central Bedfordshire is 10 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 58.7.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Walsall	80.2	38.1	147
Fife	67.1	38.9	142
Hillingdon	65.9	39	141
Central Bedfordshire (this page)	64.2	38.3	145
Trafford	58.7	38.6	144
Cheshire East	58.4	38.2	146
Conwy	58.4	38.1	148
Cheshire West and Chester	58.1	38	149
Buckinghamshire	41.8	38.8	143

National position

Central Bedfordshire against its closest comparators

Central Bedfordshire sits 145 of 192 nationally, and 119 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
143	Buckinghamshire	38.8	41.8
144	Trafford	38.6	58.7
145	Central Bedfordshire (this page)	38.3	64.2
146	Cheshire East	38.2	58.4
147	Walsall	38.1	80.2

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Central Bedfordshire, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Central Bedfordshire?

In the latest official DfT figures, 475 road collisions in Central Bedfordshire injured or killed 688 people, 113 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 64.2 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Central Bedfordshire 145 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 Central Bedfordshire rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Central Bedfordshire were broadly flat, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 580 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 Central Bedfordshire's roads?

In Central Bedfordshire there were 49 collisions involving pedestrians, 30 involving cyclists and 47 involving motorcyclists, out of 475 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 26.5%, 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 Central Bedfordshire?

Central Bedfordshire is a unitary authority, 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.

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