In total, nearly 23,000 road collisions were reported in London for the latest year on record. While this figure remains high, 26 out of 34 boroughs also saw a decrease in the overall number of accidents compared to the previous year.
To understand which London boroughs are the most at-risk of hazardous motoring activity, analysts at SNAP, the haulage industry’s digital marketplace, have calculated figures from the Department for Transport to reveal which boroughs had the highest average rate of road accidents between 2014 and 2023.
SNAP’s research reveals that Kensington and Chelsea has the highest rate of road collisions in London, averaging 2,602 annual incidents per billion miles driven in that area.
10 London boroughs with the highest rate of road collisions
Based on the average number of annual road collisions in a year (per billion miles)
- Kensington and Chelsea: 2,602
- Hammersmith and Fulham: 2,563
- Westminster: 2,494
- Haringey: 2,372
- Lewisham: 2,216
- Hackney: 1,991
- Croydon: 1,965
- Islington: 1,919
- Harrow : 1,881
- Camden: 1,809
London’s westernmost borough of Hillingdon sees the lowest average rate of road collisions per year — equivalent to 489 collisions per billion miles.
A significant portion of Hillingdon's road network is made up of motorways that tend to experience fewer accidents than more congested urban roads.
Within the entire London area, car occupants were involved in an average of 8,381 collisions per year, making them the most common type of road user to be involved in an incident. However this represents a ten-year low for car accidents and the number has continued to fall each year since the pandemic.
While cars, motorcycles, and cyclists account for three-quarters of road collisions in London, HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) occupants are involved in the fewest incidents, averaging just 24 per year—equivalent to 0.1% of all reported accidents.
London’s lower number of HGV collisions reflects a national trend recognised by SNAP's analysis, with fatal HGV collisions in Britain's rural areas nearly three times higher than in urban areas from 2014 to 2023.
Across all types of road users in London there were 25,937 road collisions in 2023, which is the second lowest for 10 years after 2020.
To discover more about the the most hazardous roads nationally, visit SNAP’s research: https://snapacc.com/hazardous-highways/