County council · England

Road risk in Hampshire

Hampshire ranks 132 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Below averageRisk score 41.2/100ONS code E10000014

Police recorded 2,324 injury collisions in Hampshire in 2025, hurting 2,958 people, of whom 634 were killed or seriously injured and 28 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 62.7 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 22% below the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 2,324 in 2025
People hurt: 2,958 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 634
Killed: 28
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 62.7 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 611.3 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 665.3 (recorded: 634)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 613.5 a year (recorded: 611.3)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 43.7 — rank 55
Population: 1,451,703
Risk score: 41.2/100 — rank 132 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 Hampshire

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were up 9.3%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 2,324 collisions.

Collisions per year in Hampshire

2025: 2,324 (up 1.7% on the year before) · peak 2,324 in 2025 · +9.3% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Hampshire looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Hampshire ranks 55. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 132 — a difference of 77 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 2,324 collisions in Hampshire, the three groups appear 983 times between them — an involvement rate of 42.3%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	267	11.5%
Cyclists	298	12.8%
Motorcyclists	418	18.0%

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 Hampshire

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Hampshire’s own shares over 6,837 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Hampshire	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	27.8%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	10.7%	6.3%	well above the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	23.8%	24.5%	close to the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	1.5%	1.4%	close to the national figure

On the darkness share, Hampshire ranks 100 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Hampshire run 4.5% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 1,687 collisions against 1,767.

What this does not tell you

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

Hampshire is the highway authority, but the collisions are spread unevenly across the 11 districts within it.

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
New Forest	337	440	96
Winchester	320	417	89
Basingstoke and Deane	276	365	74
Test Valley	245	330	71
East Hampshire	201	244	60
Havant	187	218	55
Eastleigh	186	240	49
Fareham	171	195	38
Rushmoor	147	168	32
Hart	140	198	40
Gosport	114	143	30

Benchmark

Hampshire against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Hampshire, 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 Hampshire 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 Hampshire is 15 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 67.1.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Kent	89.6	43.8	129
Scottish Borders	81.7	40.8	135
Shropshire	68.4	41.9	131
Salford	67.5	42.2	130
Cambridgeshire	63.9	43.9	128
Hampshire (this page)	62.7	41.2	132
Westmorland and Furness	61.8	41.1	134
North Northamptonshire	58	41.1	133
Wokingham	42.4	40.2	136

National position

Hampshire against its closest comparators

Hampshire sits 132 of 192 nationally, and 109 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
130	Salford	42.2	67.5
131	Shropshire	41.9	68.4
132	Hampshire (this page)	41.2	62.7
133	North Northamptonshire	41.1	58
134	Westmorland and Furness	41.1	61.8

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Hampshire, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Hampshire?

In the latest official DfT figures, 2,324 road collisions in Hampshire injured or killed 2,958 people, 634 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 62.7 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Hampshire 132 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 Hampshire rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Hampshire were up 9.3%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 2,324 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 Hampshire's roads?

In Hampshire there were 267 collisions involving pedestrians, 298 involving cyclists and 418 involving motorcyclists, out of 2,324 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 Hampshire?

Hampshire 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 Hampshire

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Hampshire’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 18% of Hampshire'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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