Fatalities are down
Fewer deaths on roads
The number of people killed on South Lanarkshire’s roads has fallen by two-thirds.
New figures show that there were six fatalities in 2017 – down from 18 the previous year.
Across Lanarkshire as a whole, a dozen people were killed in reported road accidents in Lanarkshire in 2017, down from 21 in 2016.
Transport Scotland statisticians have released provisional headline figures for road casualties reported to the police last year.
The figures show that the total number of casualties across the county fell by six per cent between 2016 and 2017 from 1239 to 1155.
And the number of people seriously injured decreased by 0.6 per cent from 159 to 158.
In South Lanarkshire, there were six fatal accidents last year, 87 serious injuries and a total of 529 casualties.
And in 2016 South Lanarkshire had 18 fatal accidents, 82 serious injuries and a total of 607 casualties.
In North Lanarkshire, there were six fatal accidents last year, 71 serious injuries and a total of 626 casualties.
Last week’s Transport Scotland report said: “The statistics are the numbers of injury road accidents which were reported by the police.
“Each accident is classified according to the severity of its most seriously injured casualty. Very few, if any, fatal accidents do not become known to the police.
“However, there could be many non-fatal injury accidents which are not reported by the public to the police, and are, therefore, not counted in these statistics because the police can only report accidents of which they are aware.”
Final figures for 2017 will be published in October and may differ slightly due to late returns and amendments.
Across Scotland, 146 people were killed in reported road accidents in 2017 – 45 fewer than in 2016.
The figures show that the total number of casualties fell by 14 per cent between 2016 and 2017 from 10,905 to 9391; the lowest number since records began and the number of people seriously injured decreased by seven per cent to 1580.