Scottish council · Scotland

Road risk in Midlothian

Midlothian ranks 178 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Lowest riskRisk score 27.4/100ONS code S12000019

Police recorded 59 injury collisions in Midlothian in 2025, hurting 76 people, of whom 27 were killed or seriously injured and 1 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 77.5 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, 4% below the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 59 in 2025
People hurt: 76 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 27
Killed: 1
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 77.5 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 31.7 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 29 (recorded: 27)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 34.7 a year (recorded: 31.7)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 26.9 — rank 152
Population: 100,390
Risk score: 27.4/100 — rank 178 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 Midlothian

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were down 37.9%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 106 collisions.

Collisions per year in Midlothian

2025: 59 (down 13.2% on the year before) · peak 106 in 2022 · -37.9% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Midlothian looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Midlothian ranks 152. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 178 — a difference of 26 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 59 collisions in Midlothian, the three groups appear 20 times between them — an involvement rate of 33.9%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	11	18.6%
Cyclists	6	10.2%
Motorcyclists	3	5.1%

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 Midlothian

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Midlothian’s own shares over 206 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Midlothian	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	25.2%	28.7%	below the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	12.6%	6.3%	roughly double the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	32%	24.5%	above the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	2.4%	1.4%	well above the national figure

On the darkness share, Midlothian ranks 155 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Midlothian run 1.8% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 55 collisions against 56.

What this does not tell you

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

Midlothian against similar authorities

A national rank compares Midlothian 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 Midlothian is 1 of 5 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 65.1.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Midlothian (this page)	77.5	27.4	178
South Lanarkshire	71.9	45.8	122
Renfrewshire	65.1	48.3	107
West Lothian	53	28.2	174
East Lothian	41.8	14.9	192

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

Midlothian against its closest comparators

Midlothian sits 178 of 192 nationally, and 23 of 26 within Scotland. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
176	Cardiff	27.8	26.7
177	Aberdeenshire	27.7	55.8
178	Midlothian (this page)	27.4	77.5
179	Stirling	27.3	50.3
180	Swansea	26.7	29

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Midlothian, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Midlothian?

In the latest official DfT figures, 59 road collisions in Midlothian injured or killed 76 people, 27 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 77.5 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Midlothian 178 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 Midlothian rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Midlothian were down 37.9%, with 2022 the worst year of the period at 106 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 Midlothian's roads?

In Midlothian there were 11 collisions involving pedestrians, 6 involving cyclists and 3 involving motorcyclists, out of 59 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 33.9%, 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 Midlothian?

Midlothian is a scottish 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.

Keep exploring