Metropolitan borough · England

Road risk in Kirklees

Kirklees ranks 69 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Above averageRisk score 56.5/100ONS code E08000034

Police recorded 632 injury collisions in Kirklees in 2025, hurting 805 people, of whom 189 were killed or seriously injured and 6 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 122.5 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 52% above the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 632 in 2025
People hurt: 805 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 189
Killed: 6
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 122.5 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 188.7 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 212 (recorded: 189)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 211.3 a year (recorded: 188.7)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 42.4 — rank 63
Population: 445,832
Risk score: 56.5/100 — rank 69 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 Kirklees

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were broadly flat, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 733 collisions.

Collisions per year in Kirklees

2025: 632 (up 4.5% on the year before) · peak 733 in 2022 · -0.5% across the period

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

Vehicle crime · year ending June 2026

Vehicle crime in Kirklees

4.79

offences per 1,000 residents

2,143

offences recorded, 12 months

104

of 287 areas, worst first

Kirklees recorded 4.79 vehicle offences per 1,000 residents, below the England and Wales rate of 5.04.

Rate calculated from 2,143 offences and a population of 447,800 (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 Kirklees

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 632 collisions in Kirklees, the three groups appear 284 times between them — an involvement rate of 44.9%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	163	25.8%
Cyclists	61	9.7%
Motorcyclists	60	9.5%

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 Kirklees

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Kirklees’s own shares over 1,959 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Kirklees	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	30.5%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	3.4%	6.3%	well below the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	28.2%	24.5%	above the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	2%	1.4%	well above the national figure

On the darkness share, Kirklees ranks 47 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Kirklees run 6% higher from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 512 collisions against 483.

What this does not tell you

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

Kirklees against similar authorities

A national rank compares Kirklees with places that may be nothing like it. This is the comparison a council actually uses: its statistical nearest neighbours — the authorities ONS identifies as most similar on population, economy and demography, restricted to the same tier, so counties are compared with counties. Within this group Kirklees is 2 of 10 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 90.3.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Calderdale	131.8	65	34
Kirklees (this page)	122.5	56.5	69
Derby	104	50.8	95
Dudley	92.5	47.2	116
Tameside	88	60.3	56
Walsall	80.2	38.1	147
Stoke-on-Trent	75.9	63.4	40
Rochdale	62.6	29.8	169
Bury	51.8	22.6	187

Peer group: ONS statistical nearest neighbours, Open Government Licence v3. ONS notes the grouping is a snapshot that is not comparable with earlier editions, and is not a judgement about any authority’s performance. The road figures against it are ours.

National position

Kirklees against its closest comparators

Kirklees sits 69 of 192 nationally, and 62 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
67	Redbridge	58	135.1
68	Enfield	57.9	103.9
69	Kirklees (this page)	56.5	122.5
70	West Dunbartonshire	56.5	69.5
71	Moray	56.2	65.7

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Kirklees, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Kirklees?

In the latest official DfT figures, 632 road collisions in Kirklees injured or killed 805 people, 189 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 122.5 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Kirklees 69 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 Kirklees rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Kirklees were broadly flat, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 733 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 Kirklees's roads?

In Kirklees there were 163 collisions involving pedestrians, 61 involving cyclists and 60 involving motorcyclists, out of 632 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 44.9%, 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 Kirklees?

Kirklees is a metropolitan borough, 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 Kirklees

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

Dashcam (parking mode)

£50–£150

26% of collisions here involve a pedestrian, and those are the cases most often argued over. Footage removes the argument.

How it works →

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