Hampshire and West Sussex have been named among the ten riskiest counties in Great Britain for cyclists, while neighbouring East Sussex recorded a significantly lower casualty rate.
New research by process safety consultancy Sigma-HSE analysed Department for Transport data showing the proportion of reported road casualties involving cyclists during 2024.
Hampshire ranked seventh out of 37 counties and county-level authorities, with cyclists accounting for 9.90 per cent of all road casualties. A total of 289 cyclist casualties were recorded in the county.
West Sussex placed tenth, with 204 cyclists among the county’s 2,250 road casualties. Cyclists therefore represented 9.07 per cent of all casualties recorded during the year.
By comparison, cyclists accounted for 6.95 per cent of road casualties in East Sussex, leaving the county outside the national top ten and more than two percentage points below neighbouring West Sussex.
The study ranked counties by the proportion of their overall road casualties involving cyclists rather than the total number of incidents.
Researchers said this approach helped highlight areas where cyclists represented a disproportionately high share of those injured, as larger counties would otherwise be expected to record more casualties across every type of road user.
Within the South East, Hampshire recorded the joint second-highest proportion behind Oxfordshire, which topped the national rankings at 17.73 per cent.
Surrey recorded 9.90 per cent, slightly ahead of Hampshire when the figures were calculated to additional decimal places. West Sussex ranked fourth in the region, followed by Buckinghamshire on 8.63 per cent and East Sussex on 6.95 per cent.
Kent recorded 5.99 per cent, while cyclists accounted for 5.90 per cent of casualties on the Isle of Wight.
Across all 37 counties included in the research, 4,354 of 53,530 road casualties involved cyclists, representing an average of 8.13 per cent.
This placed both Hampshire and West Sussex above the county average, while East Sussex remained below it.
West Sussex also recorded the eighth-highest number of cyclist casualties nationally, from the eighth-largest total number of road casualties.
Oxfordshire was named the riskiest county for cyclists, followed by Cambridgeshire and Gloucestershire.
At the other end of the rankings, North Northamptonshire recorded the lowest proportion of cyclist casualties at 3.89 per cent.
Commenting on the findings, Dr Dina Deifalla, Operations Manager at Sigma-HSE, said: “Counties like West Sussex show a concerning picture, with cyclist casualty shares above the national county average. That concentration in counties known for high cycling participation raises important questions about whether infrastructure has kept pace with demand.”
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