Cyclist fatalities fell to the lowest number since records began in 2022, however the impact of increased journeys following two Covid-hampered years saw the overall number of deaths on Britain's roads return to pre-pandemic levels, up 10 per cent in a year.
Those are the findings of the Department for Transport's 'Reported road casualties Great Britain, annual report: 2022' which outlines and analyses the casualty statistics.
The total number of people killed on Britain's roads last year was 1,712, up 9.8 per cent on 2021, while 29,742 people were killed or seriously injured, an 8 per cent increase on the year before.
Owing to the fact that 2021 was a year impacted by a pandemic lockdown, the DfT compares the figures to 2019, "the most recent equivalent pre-pandemic year". Compared to that year, the number of people killed was down 2 per cent and the number killed or seriously injured down 3 per cent.
While there were tragically still 91 people who lost their life while cycling, the number is the lowest since records began, and is down from 111 in 2021. It is only the second time on record that the number of cycling fatalities was below 100, 2022 joining 2018 (when there were 99) in that regard.
It means cycling deaths fell by 18 per cent year on year, and by 13 per cent when compared with 2019. Cycling fatalities are down 24 per cent on 2012, and when looked at from the viewpoint of fatalities per billion miles travelled they have dropped by 15 per cent on 2019 and 34 per cent on 2012.
In the overall road casualty picture, cyclists made up 15,693 of the 135,480 casualties of all severities in 2022, a 5 per cent reduction on the 16,458 in 2021 and a 7 per cent reduction on 2019.
Overall, men accounted for 30,611 more casualties than women on Britain's roads, while 1,018 of the 1,711 fatalities occurred on rural roads, compared with 593 on urban roads and 100 on motorways. That despite, for total reported casualties, urban roads having almost double the number of reports than rural roads.
The DfT say the numbers, namely road fatalities per million population by country, make "our roads some of the safest in the world", Great Britain on a par with Japan and Denmark and just narrowly behind Iceland, Sweden and Norway.
Contributory factors for incidents, assigned by police officers who attend the scene, showed that loss of control, driver or rider failing to look properly, and driver or rider careless, reckless or in a hurry were the most common.