County council · England

Road risk in Devon

Devon ranks 160 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Below averageRisk score 34.2/100ONS code E10000008

Police recorded 1,319 injury collisions in Devon in 2025, hurting 1,777 people, of whom 236 were killed or seriously injured and 24 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 48.1 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 40% below the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 1,319 in 2025
People hurt: 1,777 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 236
Killed: 24
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 48.1 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 270.6 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 251 (recorded: 236)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 296.6 a year (recorded: 270.6)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 27.9 — rank 145
Population: 845,541
Risk score: 34.2/100 — rank 160 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 Devon

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were up 7.9%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 1,319 collisions.

Collisions per year in Devon

2025: 1,319 (up 2.3% on the year before) · peak 1,319 in 2025 · +7.9% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Devon looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Devon ranks 145. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 160 — a difference of 15 places.

That gap runs the other way: relative to the traffic its roads carry, Devon 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 Devon

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 1,319 collisions in Devon, the three groups appear 476 times between them — an involvement rate of 36.1%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	150	11.4%
Cyclists	115	8.7%
Motorcyclists	211	16.0%

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 Devon

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Devon’s own shares over 3,827 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Devon	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	24.8%	28.7%	below the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	14%	6.3%	more than double the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	32.5%	24.5%	above the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	2.5%	1.4%	well above the national figure

On the darkness share, Devon ranks 163 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Devon run 11.9% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 922 collisions against 1,047.

What this does not tell you

A share is not a rate. A high darkness share means darkness accounts for more of Devon’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 Devon’s districts

Devon is the highway authority, but the collisions are spread unevenly across the 8 districts within it.

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
East Devon	251	349	43
Teignbridge	208	301	35
Exeter	189	226	30
North Devon	159	204	40
South Hams	158	217	21
Mid Devon	136	188	21
West Devon	118	168	27
Torridge	100	124	19

Benchmark

Devon against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Devon, 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 Devon 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 Devon is 16 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 51.7.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Somerset	67.7	34.1	161
Angus	66.7	33.6	162
Flintshire	62.5	33.5	163
Perth and Kinross	51.7	34.4	159
Monmouthshire	51.5	35.6	157
Devon (this page)	48.1	34.2	160
East Renfrewshire	43.8	35.8	156
West Northamptonshire	37.5	33.3	164
West Berkshire	33.9	34.6	158

National position

Devon against its closest comparators

Devon sits 160 of 192 nationally, and 130 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
158	West Berkshire	34.6	33.9
159	Perth and Kinross	34.4	51.7
160	Devon (this page)	34.2	48.1
161	Somerset	34.1	67.7
162	Angus	33.6	66.7

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Devon, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Devon?

In the latest official DfT figures, 1,319 road collisions in Devon injured or killed 1,777 people, 236 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 48.1 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Devon 160 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 Devon rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Devon were up 7.9%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 1,319 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 Devon's roads?

In Devon there were 150 collisions involving pedestrians, 115 involving cyclists and 211 involving motorcyclists, out of 1,319 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 36.1%, 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 Devon?

Devon 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 Devon

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Devon’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.

Alarmed disc lock

£20–£50

Motorcyclists are in 16% of Devon'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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