UK RTCs which have resulted in a persons death have been on a downward trend since the 1960s – however in 2020 1,516 people lost their lives on UK roads. The UK road systems, especially in Liverpool, are dated which means they have not been upgraded to reflect the increase of cars on the road. This means there are still preventative measures that could be implemented to prevent even more deaths on UK roads.

The UK government compiles and disseminates extensive data about road incidents around the nation (often once per year). This data is particularly fascinating and thorough for analysis and research because it contains, but is not limited to, geographic areas, weather conditions, vehicle types, casualty numbers, and vehicle manoeuvres.

The data come from the Open Data website of the UK government, where they have been published by the Department of Transport.

The dataset comprises of two csv files:

> accident_data.csv: every line in the file represents a unique traffic accident (identified by the AccidentIndex column), featuring various properties related to the accident as columns. Date range: 2005-2017. ~1 million records.

> vechile_data.csv: every line in the file represents the involvement of a unique vehicle in a unique traffic accident, featuring various vehicle and passenger properties as columns. Date range: 2004-2016. ~1.6 million records.

The two above-mentioned files/datasets can be linked through the unique traffic accident identifier (Accident_Index column).