County council · England

Road risk in Suffolk

Suffolk ranks 81 of 192 British highway authorities on our road risk score. Here is what the official record shows, and how it compares.

Above averageRisk score 53.7/100ONS code E10000029

Police recorded 1,240 injury collisions in Suffolk in 2025, hurting 1,578 people, of whom 336 were killed or seriously injured and 15 were killed. Set against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 80.7 killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, level with the median ranked authority (80.5).

Collisions: 1,240 in 2025
People hurt: 1,578 casualties
Killed or seriously injured: 336
Killed: 15
KSI per billion vehicle miles: 80.7 (median 80.5)
KSI, three-year average: 307 a year
Severity-adjusted KSI, 2025: 375 (recorded: 336)
Severity-adjusted KSI, three-year average: 346 a year (recorded: 307)
KSI per 100,000 residents: 42.5 — rank 62
Population: 789,850
Risk score: 53.7/100 — rank 81 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 Suffolk

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions were up 16.4%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 1,240 collisions.

Collisions per year in Suffolk

2025: 1,240 (up 8.7% on the year before) · peak 1,240 in 2025 · +16.4% across the period

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

Two ways of measuring

Suffolk looks less dangerous per mile driven than per resident

Divide casualties by the people who live here and Suffolk ranks 62. Divide by the miles actually driven on its roads and it ranks 81 — a difference of 19 places.

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

These are the road users with the least protection when something goes wrong, and they carry a disproportionate share of the serious injuries. Across 1,240 collisions in Suffolk, the three groups appear 520 times between them — an involvement rate of 41.9%.

Road user	Collisions	Share of all collisions
Pedestrians	173	14.0%
Cyclists	165	13.3%
Motorcyclists	182	14.7%

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 Suffolk

DfT records the light level and road surface at every collision, but publishes neither below national level. These are Suffolk’s own shares over 3,311 collisions, with the national figure beside each one for comparison.

Share of collisions	Suffolk	National	How it reads
In darknessAny collision where the officer recorded darkness, lit or unlit.	26.5%	28.7%	close to the national figure
In darkness, no street lightingThe rural lighting picture rather than the urban speeding one.	11.4%	6.3%	roughly double the national figure
On a wet road surfaceWet, damp or standing water at the scene.	26.3%	24.5%	close to the national figure
On snow or iceRare everywhere, and concentrated in a handful of authorities.	1.6%	1.4%	above the national figure

On the darkness share, Suffolk ranks 134 of 192 authorities, counting from the highest.

The winter effect. Collisions in Suffolk run 4.7% lower from November to January than from May to July — against 4.5% lower nationally. That is 826 collisions against 867.

What this does not tell you

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

Suffolk is the highway authority, but the collisions are spread unevenly across the 5 districts within it.

District	Collisions	Casualties	KSI
East Suffolk	385	496	109
West Suffolk	288	373	85
Ipswich	242	280	55
Mid Suffolk	163	205	43
Babergh	162	224	44

Benchmark

Suffolk against similar authorities

ONS does name statistical neighbours for Suffolk, 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 Suffolk 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 Suffolk is 14 of 21 on casualties per mile driven, against a group median of 92.2.

Authority	KSI / bn miles	Score	National rank
Bexley	123	53	84
Wolverhampton	108.1	54.2	78
Argyll and Bute	102.1	54.2	79
Blaenau Gwent	92.8	53	85
Suffolk (this page)	80.7	53.7	81
North Yorkshire	77.5	53.6	82
Gloucestershire	75.2	53.2	83
South Tyneside	67.2	54.4	77
East Ayrshire	60.9	53.7	80

National position

Suffolk against its closest comparators

Suffolk sits 81 of 192 nationally, and 70 of 148 within England. These are the authorities nearest to it in the table.

#	Authority	Score	KSI / bn miles
79	Argyll and Bute	54.2	102.1
80	East Ayrshire	53.7	60.9
81	Suffolk (this page)	53.7	80.7
82	North Yorkshire	53.6	77.5
83	Gloucestershire	53.2	75.2

See all 192 authorities →

Common questions

Road risk in Suffolk, answered

How dangerous are the roads in Suffolk?

In the latest official DfT figures, 1,240 road collisions in Suffolk injured or killed 1,578 people, 336 of them killed or seriously injured. Measured against the traffic its roads actually carry, that is 80.7 people killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles, against a median of 80.5 across the ranked authorities — placing Suffolk 81 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 Suffolk rising or falling?

Across 2021–2025, recorded collisions in Suffolk were up 16.4%, with 2025 the worst year of the period at 1,240 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 Suffolk's roads?

In Suffolk there were 173 collisions involving pedestrians, 165 involving cyclists and 182 involving motorcyclists, out of 1,240 in total. Added together that is an involvement rate of 41.9%, 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 Suffolk?

Suffolk 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 Suffolk

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

Dashcam (parking mode)

£50–£150

Collisions in Suffolk are up 16% across the period. A dashcam with parking mode is the cheapest way to keep a disputed claim from becoming a 50/50 split.

How it works →

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