Background: police records

How casualty information is recorded

From collision scene to collision record

When the police attend the scene of an collision or it is reported to them later, the police officer records standardised information. This is called ‘stats19’ information, named after the reference code the Department for Transport put on the data collection form. This example of a stats19 form shows the information collected, although nowadays officers input data at the scene using a handheld terminal.

The police pass the stats19 information covering Surrey to the County Council and that information has been used here. Some of it cannot be made public.

The stats19 information is the same across the country, enabling the Department for Transport to compile an annual report about Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain .

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The information collected in stats19 forms

The stats19 form covers the circumstances of the collision, the vehicles involved, the people injured in the collision (the casualties) and the contributory factors. The last of these reflects the judgement of the attending police officer on what was likely to have caused the collision.

The table below shows the headings of the sections with the four different forms. Most of the sections have multiple-choice answers. There is a free text section where the police officer writes a description of the collision.

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Road safety factors

As of 2025, “contributory factors” are being transitioned to “road safety factors”. They are both an interpretation of the cause of an collision. The interpretation is made by a police officer who will be attending the scene after the collision has occurred. In this way, they are somewhat subjective.

The Department of Transport have created a mapping tool to convert contributory factors into road safety factors. This has been applied on this site, so you will see only road safety factors for all the years. The Department for Transport have provided more inofrmation about the transition in an initial analysis.

This transition has been made to reduce the number of factors so understanding them is less complex and also to align to the ‘safe system pillars’ which now inform casualty reduction strategies. The Vision Zero road safety strategy for Surrey uses the Safe System approach. The Safe System in these strategies maps easily to the road safety categories:

Beneath the six road safety factor categories sit the road safety factors:

Furthermore, when assigning a road safety factor the police officer has to also classify it as ‘very likely’ or ‘possible’ that the factor contributed to the collision. On the stats19 form, there is room for up to 6 road safety factors to be used. Each road safety factor is assigned to one of the participants; a single participant may be assigned more than one road safety factor and a single road safety factor may be assigned to more than one participant.

The Department for Transport guidance gives the following instructions for recording contributory factors in the ‘Stats20’ form, an updated version of which was published in 2024 superceding the 2011 guidance:

The RSF reflect the Reporting Officer’s opinion at the time of reporting and are not necessarily the result of extensive investigation. Furthermore, it is recognised that subsequent enquiries could lead to the reporting officer changing his opinion. This is not a problem.

Factors should be identified on the basis of evidence rather than guesses about what may have happened. This evidence can come from various sources such as witness statements, vehicle and site inspections. It can be of variable quality, which is the reason for recording the assessment of the reliability of the RSF.

When there is conflicting evidence (e.g. conflicting witness statements) the reporting officer should decide on the most plausible account of the accident and, taking into account all other available evidence, base the codes on this.

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Definition of Cycles and Cyclists

The Department for Transport publish guidelines on the definitions of a cyclist and cycle:

Pedal cycles: Includes tandems, tricycles and toy cycles ridden on the carriageway. From 1983 the definition has included cycles and tricycles with battery assistance with a maximum speed of 15 mph.

Pedal cyclists: People on pedal cycles, including any passengers.

Riders: The person in control of a pedal cycle. Anyone else on it is a passenger.

A child riding a toy cycle on the pavement or someone pushing a cycle is counted as a pedestrian.

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Definition of fatal, serious and slight injury

The definitions listed below are provided by the Department for Transport:

Killed (fatal injury)

Human casualties who sustained injuries which caused death less than 30 days after the collision. Confirmed suicides are excluded.

Serious injury

An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an “in-patient”, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the collision.

Slight injury

An injury of a minor character such as a sprain (including neck whiplash injury), bruise or cut which are not judged to be severe, or slight shock requiring roadside attention. This definition includes injuries not requiring medical treatment.

Some background information

The severity of the injury is classified on the basis of information that is available to the police officer within a short time of the collision. Generally, it will not reflect the results of a medical examination. The police may also make a follow up call to an injured person within a few days of the collision, for example, to determine if they were kept in hospital as an in-patient (eg an overnight stay) and that will help to classify the severity of the injury.

The police input a description of the injuries into the Collision Reporting and Sharing System (CRASH) and the system then automatically classifies the injury as fatal, serious or slight.

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Casualties, collisions, accidents, crashes

A casualty is a person injured in an collision. An injury will be classified as fatal, serious or slight.

An collision is an event resulting in one or more casualties and involving one or more vehicles. Until recently, the word “accident” was used in DfT reports. The change recognises the term ‘accident’ could be interpreted as an incident of total chance when, in fact, injudicious behaviours or environmental factors made it more likely and ‘collision’ better recognises these factors.

Outside of stats19, crash is sometimes used. An incident may only involve one moving participant, whereas a ‘collision’ might be interpreted as involving two moving objects. For example, a person riding a bike who skids on ice and is injured has crashed but has not collided with a car or person walking. That crash would be recorded as a collision in the stats19 records if it were reported.

This reports follows DfT protocol and uses the word ‘collision’.

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Are all casualties included in stats19 records?

No, they are not. There are two reasons for this:

1. There’s not always a legal obligation to report an collision to the police.
2. Even if an collision is reported to the police, it may of a type that the Department for Transport has decided should not be included in the stats19 records.

Legal obligation to report collisions

If a rider or driver of a vehicle is involved in an collision causing personal injury or property damage, then the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires them to stop, give their name and address (and that of the vehicle’s owner if different), their vehicle registration number and their certificate of insurance to anyone with ‘reasonable grounds for requiring them’, such as the other people involved.

However, there is no obligation to report the collision to the police unless those details are not given at the time of the collision, in which case the person concerned must report it to the police within 24 hours.

On page 27 of its annual casualty report the Department of Transport states, “it has long been known that a considerable proportion of non-fatal casualties are not known to the police, as hospital, survey and compensation claims data all indicate a higher number of casualties than police collision data would suggest.”

Department for Transport rules on what is included in stats19 records

For an collision to be included in the police stats19 records, it has to:

• involve at least one road vehicle - cycles are counted as road vehicles;
• result in a casualty;
• take place on the public highway (see below); and
• be reported to the police within 30 days of taking place.

Definition of public highway for casualty reporting

The list below showing examples of which locations are included or excluded from collision records is taken from the Department for Transport guidance.

Highway

• Included
  • Motorway (including A(M) road), ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’ road
  • Unclassified road
  • Toll road or bridge where Secretary of State or local authority is the highway authority

Highway - limited access road or lane

• Included
  • Pedestrianised road with limited access for motor vehicles
  • Bus lane, busway or guided busway
  • Tram or light rail track if part of Highway
  • Tram level crossing (whether or not involving tram) if crossing is Highway
  • Cycle lane, cycleway or shared access footway if part of Highway
  • Footway or pavement if part of Highway

Public right of way with limited access

• Included

  • Country track, byway open to all traffic, cycle path or cycle track with lawful access for motor vehicles

• Not included

  • Footpath or bridleway with no lawful access for motor vehicles
  • Cycle path/track with no lawful access for motor vehicles

Private roads

• Included

  • Royal parks

• Not included

  • Unadopted roads
  • Airports unless Highway
  • Harbours unless Highway
  • Hospital areas unless Highway
  • Private residential estates unless Highway
  • Private retail shopping parks unless Highway
  • Private industrial estates unless Highway
  • Military areas
  • Municipal or private parks unless Highway
  • Service areas

Other areas to which motor vehicles may have access

• Included
  • Railway level crossings - train not involved in collision
• Not included
  • Municipal and private car parks and access roads
  • Bus stations unless Highway
  • Railway stations
  • Railway level crossings - collision involving train

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