County council · England

Road risk in East Sussex

East Sussex ranks 63 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Above averageRisk score 59/100ONS code E10000011

Police recorded 1,060 injury collisions in East Sussex in 2025, hurting 1,426 people, of whom 339 were killed or seriously injured and 10 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 140.2 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 74% above the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 1,060 in 2025
People hurt: 1,426 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 339
Killed: 10
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 140.2 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 342.9 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 368 (recorded: 339)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 380 a year (recorded: 342.9)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 60.3 — rank 10
Population: 561,855
Risk score: 59/100 — rank 63 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 East Sussex

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were up 2.7%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 1,216 collisions.

Collisions per year in East Sussex

2025: 1,060 (down 2.1% on the year before) · peak 1,216 in 2022 · +2.7% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

East Sussex looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and East Sussex ranks 10. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 63 — a difference of 53 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 1,060 collisions in East Sussex, the three groups appear 448 times between them — an involvement rate of 42.3%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	151	14.2%
Cyclists	95	9.0%
Motorcyclists	202	19.1%

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 East Sussex

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are East Sussex’s own shares over 3,276 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	East Sussex	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	26.6%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	11.6%	6.3%	roughly double the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	27.4%	24.5%	above the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	1.7%	1.4%	above the national figure

On the darkness share, East Sussex ranks 129 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in East Sussex run 3% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 834 collisions against 860.

What this does not tell you

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

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

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
Wealden	317	453	113
Lewes	206	282	61
Rother	204	285	65
Hastings	167	211	52
Eastbourne	166	195	48

Benchmark

East Sussex against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for East Sussex, 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 East Sussex 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 East Sussex is 3 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 103.4.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Blackpool	316.4	59.4	62
East Sussex (this page)	140.2	59	63
Medway	137.6	58.5	65
Redbridge	135.1	58	67
Bromley	122.8	59.9	60
Barnet	114.1	59.9	59
Torbay	97.1	58.1	66
Highland	91.8	59.5	61
Torfaen	89.3	58.9	64

National position

East Sussex against its closest comparators

East Sussex sits 63 of 192 nationally, and 57 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
61	Highland	59.5	91.8
62	Blackpool	59.4	316.4
63	East Sussex (this page)	59	140.2
64	Torfaen	58.9	89.3
65	Medway	58.5	137.6

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in East Sussex, answered

How dangerous are the roads in East Sussex?

In the latest official DfT figures, 1,060 road collisions in East Sussex injured or killed 1,426 people, 339 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 140.2 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing East Sussex 63 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 East Sussex rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in East Sussex were up 2.7%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 1,216 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 East Sussex's roads?

In East Sussex there were 151 collisions involving pedestrians, 95 involving cyclists and 202 involving motorcyclists, out of 1,060 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 42.3%, 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 East Sussex?

East Sussex 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 East Sussex

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from East Sussex’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 19% of East Sussex'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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