People injured whilst riding a cycle in Surrey
Introduction
These pages look at the cyclist casualty information for Surrey provided by the police records. There is also a comparison with the figures for all of Great Britain. GB data is sourced from the Department for Transport. Great Britain figures are made available annually, usually in September of the following year, Surrey figures on this site are updated annually soon after the year end. This site was last updated on 26 April, 2025.
Surrey casualties
Unless otherwise stated, figures are for the period 01 January, 2008 to 31 December, 2024. In this time, there were 8,132 people injured whilst riding a cycle in Surrey. These casualties have arisen from 7,972 collisions. Over the same period, the total number of casualties, including cyclists, is 78,046 arising from 57,700 collisions. The most recent figures are provisional.
Surrey casualties in the context of Great Britain
GB comparison figures are to the end of 2023. DfT severity adjustments have not been applied to the GB data.
From 2008 until the end of 2023, there were 283,096 cyclist casualties recorded in Great Britain, arising from 261,483 collisions.
Summary
The sub-headings are links to the pages that provide more detail.
Trends
The trend in the number of people killed whilst cycling has remained flat from 1994 to present. Total casualties followed an upward trend from 2003 to a peak in 2014.There was then a relatively steep reduction to 2019, followed by a rise in 2020. Casualties have decreased again after that and in 2024 the number is lower than the previous low of 2019. The proportion of casualties who have suffered serious injury whilst riding a bike in Surrey has risen almost continuously since the early years of this century.
Profile of a casualty
The “average” characteristics of a casualty (although averages can represent wide ranges) are:
- male
- late thirties
- a Surrey resident
And the injury occurred:
- in a built-up 30mph limit area
- on a weekday
- in daylight with fine weather
- in collision with a car
- whilst cycling straight ahead
Comparing two years
Using the peak casualty year for comparison - 2014 compared to 2024 - shows that some factors have remained constant as a percentage of all cyclist casualties but some have changed. The greatest change is that the proportion of injuries that are serious has risen.
Comparison with other areas
Despite downward trend from 2014 described above, in 2023, Surrey still had the third largest number of casualties in Great Britain.
Comparison with other modes
Most casualties in Surrey are car occupants.
Comparison of areas in Surrey
The “Weybridge, Walton, Molesey, Esher, Cobham” area has consistently had a higher proportion of cyclist casualties than other areas in Surrey. Pedestrian casualties are more clustered in town centres than cyclist casualties, whilst car occupant casualties have dense linear distributions along major roads and motorways.
Young people
People aged under 18 comprise just more than 1 in 7 of all casualties, with fewer in rural areas compared to all ages. At least one in four under-18 casualties are injured on the school journey. Most people under 16 are injured on “quieter” roads.
When
Casualties in winter are around half those in summer.
Where
There is a fairly even balance between injuries resulting from collisions at junctions (57% of all cyclist casualties) and those that are ‘at least 20 metres from a junction’. A little over half of cyclist casualties were either riding along, or at a junction that included, an unclassified road - the category into which most residential roads fall. Only one type of road feature appears to be dominant and that is speed limit - around three-quarters of casualties were riding within a 30mph limit.
How
Most injured people riding bikes are in a collision with a motor vehicle - usually a car. 3 out of 4 cyclist casualties were going straight ahead at the time of the collision. The most common manoeuvres of the other vehicle were going straight ahead, turning left, turning right and moving off.
Why
For both the cyclist casualty and the other participant(s), ‘behaviour or inexperience’ is the most common factor contributing to the accident. It is attributed to the other participant (ie, usually the car driver) around twice as often as the cyclist casualty.