County council · England

Road risk in Lancashire

Lancashire ranks 92 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Above averageRisk score 51.9/100ONS code E10000017

Police recorded 2,146 injury collisions in Lancashire in 2025, hurting 2,996 people, of whom 720 were killed or seriously injured and 29 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 103.4 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 28% above the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 2,146 in 2025
People hurt: 2,996 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 720
Killed: 29
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 103.4 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 700.5 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 811 (recorded: 720)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 789.8 a year (recorded: 700.5)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 55 — rank 17
Population: 1,308,567
Risk score: 51.9/100 — rank 92 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 Lancashire

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were up 3.8%, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 2,186 collisions.

Collisions per year in Lancashire

2025: 2,146 (up 0.9% on the year before) · peak 2,186 in 2023 · +3.8% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Lancashire looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Lancashire ranks 17. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 92 — a difference of 75 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 2,146 collisions in Lancashire, the three groups appear 823 times between them — an involvement rate of 38.4%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	386	18.0%
Cyclists	220	10.3%
Motorcyclists	217	10.1%

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 Lancashire

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Lancashire’s own shares over 6,458 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Lancashire	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	28.4%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	7.9%	6.3%	above the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	29%	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, Lancashire ranks 83 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Lancashire run 5% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 1,659 collisions against 1,746.

What this does not tell you

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

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

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
Preston	346	453	115
Lancaster	231	314	83
Wyre	196	262	65
South Ribble	191	278	56
Chorley	189	300	61
West Lancashire	185	254	67
Burnley	167	228	59
Fylde	161	238	51
Hyndburn	153	226	45
Pendle	134	183	41
Ribble Valley	97	131	37
Rossendale	96	129	40

Benchmark

Lancashire against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Lancashire, 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 Lancashire 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 Lancashire is 6 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 92.2.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
West Sussex	115.6	51.5	94
Oldham	105.7	51.7	93
Derby	104	50.8	95
Lancashire (this page)	103.4	51.9	92
Sandwell	101.4	52.5	88
Denbighshire	96.2	52.2	90
Gwynedd	85.3	52.1	91
Darlington	79.2	52.2	89
Wiltshire	76.6	50.6	96

National position

Lancashire against its closest comparators

Lancashire sits 92 of 192 nationally, and 78 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
90	Denbighshire	52.2	96.2
91	Gwynedd	52.1	85.3
92	Lancashire (this page)	51.9	103.4
93	Oldham	51.7	105.7
94	West Sussex	51.5	115.6

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Lancashire, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Lancashire?

In the latest official DfT figures, 2,146 road collisions in Lancashire injured or killed 2,996 people, 720 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 103.4 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Lancashire 92 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 Lancashire rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Lancashire were up 3.8%, with 2023 the worst year of the period at 2,186 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 Lancashire's roads?

In Lancashire there were 386 collisions involving pedestrians, 220 involving cyclists and 217 involving motorcyclists, out of 2,146 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 38.4%, 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 Lancashire?

Lancashire 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 Lancashire

Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Lancashire’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 10% of Lancashire'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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