County council · England

Road risk in Kent

Kent ranks 129 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Below averageRisk score 43.8/100ONS code E10000016

Police recorded 2,957 injury collisions in Kent in 2025, hurting 3,882 people, of whom 839 were killed or seriously injured and 38 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 89.6 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 11% above the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 2,957 in 2025
People hurt: 3,882 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 839
Killed: 38
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 89.6 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 792.6 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 919 (recorded: 839)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 877.1 a year (recorded: 792.6)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 50.8 — rank 24
Population: 1,652,769
Risk score: 43.8/100 — rank 129 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 Kent

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were down 9.0%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 3,457 collisions.

Collisions per year in Kent

2025: 2,957 (up 2% on the year before) · peak 3,457 in 2022 · -9% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Kent looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Kent ranks 24. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 129 — a difference of 105 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 2,957 collisions in Kent, the three groups appear 1,204 times between them — an involvement rate of 40.7%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	493	16.7%
Cyclists	272	9.2%
Motorcyclists	439	14.8%

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 Kent

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Kent’s own shares over 9,227 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Kent	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	27.6%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	8.7%	6.3%	well above the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	23.6%	24.5%	close to 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, Kent ranks 103 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Kent run 4.4% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 2,308 collisions against 2,415.

What this does not tell you

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

Kent is the highway authority, but the collisions are spread unevenly across the 12 districts within it.

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
Maidstone	312	399	97
Dartford	292	398	68
Canterbury	284	357	81
Swale	277	379	76
Thanet	273	349	82
Sevenoaks	265	347	85
Ashford	256	356	78
Tonbridge and Malling	227	300	60
Folkestone and Hythe	205	260	59
Dover	199	270	63
Tunbridge Wells	194	240	50
Gravesham	173	227	40

Benchmark

Kent against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Kent, 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 Kent 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 Kent is 1 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 67.5.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Kent (this page)	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
Salford	67.5	42.2	130
Cambridgeshire	63.9	43.9	128
Hampshire	62.7	41.2	132
North Northamptonshire	58	41.1	133
Oxfordshire	53.8	44.6	125

National position

Kent against its closest comparators

Kent sits 129 of 192 nationally, and 106 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
127	Herefordshire, County of	44.2	77.7
128	Cambridgeshire	43.9	63.9
129	Kent (this page)	43.8	89.6
130	Salford	42.2	67.5
131	Shropshire	41.9	68.4

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Kent, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Kent?

In the latest official DfT figures, 2,957 road collisions in Kent injured or killed 3,882 people, 839 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 89.6 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Kent 129 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 Kent rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Kent were down 9.0%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 3,457 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 Kent's roads?

In Kent there were 493 collisions involving pedestrians, 272 involving cyclists and 439 involving motorcyclists, out of 2,957 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 40.7%, 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 Kent?

Kent 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 Kent

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Kent’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 15% of Kent'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 →

We are a data business, not a retailer: these link to our guides, which link on to retailers. Some of those links earn us a small commission at no cost to you, and we hold no stock and take no payment for placement. All security guides.

Keep exploring