Crashes on Wales’s 20 and 30mph roads between April and June were 37% down on the same months in 2023, the last spring before the default 20mph limit came in, Welsh Government statisticians say.
There were 299 collisions on those roads, against 477 three years ago, and 378 people hurt against 584.
Across every road in Wales there were 638 crashes and 856 casualties, 19% and 20% fewer than a year earlier. Outside the Covid years, Mark Hooper, the deputy transport minister, said that was the lowest recorded.
He said the figures were “extremely encouraging” and more evidence the limit was making roads safer. “Every one of those figures represents someone who has avoided injury, or death, on our roads.”
The caveat on the quarter
The statisticians warn quarterly figures are volatile and should be compared with the same quarter in earlier years. They say collisions across Wales have been falling steadily for a decade.
The 20mph limit replaced 30mph on most restricted roads on 17 September 2023, taking Wales from about 870km of 20mph road to 13,000km. The Welsh Government counts 20 and 30mph roads together so the same stretches can be compared before and after.
Hooper said the government would “continue to monitor these trends closely, as part of our ongoing evaluation of the policy”. That evaluation is not due to report until 2029.
South Wales Police and the injuries that were called “slight”
The same statisticians raise a question about how injuries have been counted across Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and the rest of the South Wales force area.
South Wales Police switched in November 2025 to a system that grades injuries from a fixed list rather than an officer’s judgement. Dyfed-Powys Police did the same in May 2023.
When the statisticians ran the new South Wales data, they say the move produced a larger rise in serious collisions than in most other forces, Dyfed-Powys included.
They say this is “likely due to historical mis-categorisation of serious collisions as slight collisions by South Wales police, which is now being categorised correctly”.
Two quarters of data is too little to be sure, they add, and the South Wales figures will be revised as more comes in. The statisticians say the change affects only the split between serious and slight, not deaths or totals.
Adjusted for the change, 294 people were killed or seriously injured on Welsh roads in the quarter. The government warns against comparing severity trends until the adjustments settle.
What it means locally
Twelve people died on Carmarthenshire’s roads last year, nearly twice the Welsh rate per mile, with Swansea losing two and Neath Port Talbot one.
Locally the limit has already been trimmed, with Swansea returning 17 roads to 30mph and Carmarthenshire 11.
Neath Port Talbot ruled out any changes after reviewing the roads residents and councillors raised.
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