Road risk in Orkney Islands
The official road casualty record for Orkney Islands, from DfT STATS19.
Police recorded 8 injury collisions in Orkney Islands in 2025, hurting 9 people, of whom 5 were killed or seriously injured.
Not ranked. Orkney Islands is held out of our national tablebecause it recorded 5 killed or seriously injured, below the 20 needed for the derived percentages to mean anything and its recorded vehicle mileage is too low for a stable per-mile rate. Every figure here is the real recorded number. At this size the derived percentages describe chance more than they describe the place, so there is no rank attached to them. How the floors work.
- Collisions
- 8 in 2025
- People hurt
- 9 casualties
- Killed or seriously injured
- 5
- Killed
- 2
- KSI per billion vehicle miles
- 70.6 (median 80.5)
- KSI, three-year average
- 6 a year
- Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025
- 5 (recorded: 5)
- Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average
- 7 a year (recorded: 6)
- KSI per 100,000 residents
- 22.8
- Population
- 21,920
Compiled by Stephen Hall, Data lead, Swift Assist. Source: DfT STATS19 and DfT road traffic estimates (2025), OGL v3. Updated 2026-10-08.
Five years of collisions in Orkney Islands
Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were down 38.5%, with 2021 the worst year of the period at 13 collisions.
Collisions per year in Orkney Islands
2025: 8 (down 38.5% on the year before) · peak 13 in 2021 · -38.5% across the period
Axis clipped to the data range to show year-on-year movement.
Pedestrians, cyclists and riders in Orkney Islands
These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 8 collisions in Orkney Islands, the three groups appear 3 times between them — an involvement rate of 37.5%.
| Road user | Collisions | Share of all collisions |
|---|---|---|
| Pedestrians | 0 | 0.0% |
| Cyclists | 0 | 0.0% |
| Motorcyclists | 3 | 37.5% |
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.
When collisions happen in Orkney Islands
DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Orkney Islands’s own shares over 31 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.
| Share of collisions | Orkney Islands | National | How it reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit. | 38.7% | 28.7% | above the national figure |
| In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one. | 32.3% | 6.3% | more than three times the national figure |
| On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene. | 32.3% | 24.5% | above the national figure |
| On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities. | 3.2% | 1.4% | more than double the national figure |
What this does not tell you
- A share is not a rate. A high darkness share means darkness accounts for more of Orkney Islands’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.
Road risk in Orkney Islands, answered
How dangerous are the roads in Orkney Islands?
In the latest official DfT figures, 8 road collisions in Orkney Islands injured or killed 9 people, 5 of them killed or seriously injured. Orkney Islands is not ranked in our national table because it recorded 5 killed or seriously injured, below the 20 needed for the derived percentages to mean anything and its recorded vehicle mileage is too low for a stable per-mile rate.
Are road casualties in Orkney Islands rising or falling?
Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Orkney Islands were down 38.5%, with 2021 the worst year of the period at 13 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 Orkney Islands's roads?
In Orkney Islands there were 0 collisions involving pedestrians, 0 involving cyclists and 3 involving motorcyclists, out of 8 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 37.5%, 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 Orkney Islands?
Orkney Islands 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.
What actually changes the odds in Orkney Islands
Data is only useful if it changes what you do. These three are picked from Orkney Islands’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.
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.
More on Orkney Islands and UK road risk
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