Road safety progress stalls as fresh data sharpens focus on fleet risk management

London, April 01, 2026 – New figures suggest improvements in road safety are losing momentum, prompting Webfleet to call for renewed focus on fleet risk management.

Latest road safety data

Data from the Office of Rail and Road shows that 1,931 people were killed or seriously injured on England’s strategic road network in 2024, up from 1,908 in 2023, while the casualty rate remained unchanged at 19.9 per billion vehicle miles travelled¹.

Provisional Department for Transport figures for the year to June 2025 put the number of people killed or seriously injured across Great Britain at 29,896, with little change on the previous 12 months².

A more proactive approach to risk

These figures should prompt fleets to take a more proactive approach to risk, according to Webfleet, Bridgestone’s advanced fleet management solution.

Any sign that road safety progress is slowing should be a prompt for organisations to take stock of how they are managing risk, said Alex Crane-Robinson, Regional Director, UK and Ireland at Webfleet. Road safety cannot be treated as a one-off initiative or something that is reviewed once a year.

Using fleet data to identify risk patterns

Crane-Robinson points out that fleets need to manage safety continuously, using fleet data to build a better understanding of incidents and their causes. This may include making better use of data already available through fleet management systems to spot patterns earlier and respond before problems escalate.

Patterns that can help fleets spot where risk is developing include:

• speeding
• harsh braking
• fatigue
• recurring issues on certain routes
• incidents at particular times of day

A preventative approach to safety

This kind of insight, he says, can support a more preventative approach, from tailored driver training and changes to schedules through to closer scrutiny of whether particular vehicles or routes are linked to repeated problems.

Practical steps, backed by a clearer view of driver and vehicle risk, can make a real difference, he said. When fleets have a strong understanding of day-to-day risk, they are better placed to intervene early and help prevent repeat problems.

¹Office of Rail and Road, Fourth annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network, 19 March 2026.

²Department for Transport, Reported road casualties in Great Britain: provisional estimates, year ending June 2025. The Department for Transport reported an estimated 29,896 people killed or seriously injured in Great Britain in the year ending June 2025, compared with 29,540 in the previous year, which it described as showing little change. The same release reported 1,579 road fatalities, down 3% year-on-year.