Road traffic collisions

Traffic collisions happen when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, a bicycle, pedestrian or other moving or stationary objects, resulting in an injury or death.

Information about traffic collisions is recorded by Avon and Somerset Police (either by attending the scene themselves or reported to them) on a STATS19 form.

If you were involved in an injury collision within the past 30 days that wasn't attended by the police, you can report it on the Avon and Somerset Police website. This helps to make sure that we get a full picture of all road traffic collisions across North Somerset.

Data on traffic collisions that result in personal injury is collected by Avon and Somerset Police and can include details of the incident, casualties and the vehicles involved. 

This data is transferred to us on a monthly basis. We carry out accuracy and validation checks using Department for Transport guidelines. We then use this information to inform our road safety work.

Our road safety team aims to reduce collisions and casualties on public highways. The number of collisions has fallen over the last 15 years, with the majority of the decline seen in minor injury collisions. 

As part of the West of England's Joint Local Transport Plan 4, our aim is to achieve Vision Zero, which is a plan to reach zero avoidable deaths or serious injuries on our roads by 2036. 

You can view trends in collisions and casualties on our dashboard. On the dashboard you can select collision and casualty numbers by Parish, with additional information about why collisions occurred. 

Trends for collisions across Great Britain are available on the Department for Transport dashboard.

For anyone acting on behalf of a client such as transport planners, solicitors and transport consultants, we can provide collision data for commercial purposes. There is a charge for this service, which is listed in our fees and charges. 

Please contact the road safety team on roadsafety@n-somerset.gov.uk for a quote, supplying the following information: 

• the dates you need the data for (usually the last three or five years) 
• the location in which you need the data (provide a map showing the extents)
• the reason you need the data (this will enable us to provide an accurate quote)

You can view basic information such as the location and severity of a collision on the CrashMap website. There is no charge to access this data.

The road safety team liaises with the police on fatal and - when notified - life-threatening collisions. We investigate the locations of fatal collisions to understand why they might have occurred and whether any intervention is required to prevent similar collisions taking place.

We use injury collision data from Avon and Somerset Police to identify where there are clusters of collisions. A cluster (blackspot) is denoted as a collision site experiencing four or more injury collisions within a 40-metre radius over a three-year period. 

We investigate and prioritise highway improvements at these locations to achieve the greatest casualty reduction numbers across the whole North Somerset network. By being objective through a data-led evidence approach we do not direct funding away from these critical locations. 

This method does mean that locations where there are very few collisions have a lower priority, but this does mean that we are able to demonstrate good value for money on the schemes we do introduce.

We also look at other factors to prioritise the delivery of improvement schemes and we can consider requests from communities supported by North Somerset Council ward members and town/parish councils.

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) looks at the potential impact of highway improvement schemes on the safety of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

Schemes that involve building new roads or other significant changes should be audited. 

Audits are not required for maintenance work that involve like-for-like replacements or refurbishment, but they may be needed for highway alterations that are proposed as part of a maintenance scheme. 

RSAs are carried out by an independent team not involved with the scheme design. The aim of the audit is to minimise the number and severity of situations in which road users are injured on the streets and roads.

Audit stages

There are four stages of an RSA:

• stage 1 – preliminary design
• stage 2 – detailed design
• stage 3 – pre-opening/completion of construction
• stage 4 – post-opening/monitoring

We require new developments to submit stage 1 and 2 RSAs with their planning applications, followed by a stage 3 once open to the public.