Brake champions safer roads for kids as the number of young children killed on Britain’s roads increases by 53%

• 26 children aged 7 or under were killed in collisions in 2024, compared with 17 in 2023 – an increase of 53%
• More than 3,100 children aged 7 or under were killed or injured on Britain’s roads in 2024 – equivalent to nine every day
• Brake, the road safety charity, is hosting its annual Beep Beep! Day, a national event to help 2- to 7-year-olds and the people around them to learn about road safety
• Free teaching resources have been sent to everyone who signed up, featuring characters from the popular Aardman series Timmy Time.

This year’s Beep Beep! Day comes as Brake highlights stark child road casualty statistics. The latest official figures reveal that the number of children aged 7 or under killed in collisions on Britain’s roads increased by 53%, from 17 in 2023 to 26 in 2024 (see Table 1). [1,2]

Overall, the number of children aged 7 or younger who died or sustained injuries in crashes fell by 6% to 3,158. As well as 26 deaths, the total includes 546 serious injuries and 2,586 slight injuries. Of the 572 under-7s killed or seriously injured, 322 were walking and 18 were cycling. [1]

Road death and harm, especially involving children, devastates families, schools and communities, yet collisions are largely preventable.

In January, the Government announced a new strategy for improving road safety in Britain, with targets to reduce child road deaths and serious injuries by 70% by 2035. [3]

Brake has run Beep Beep! Days for more than 20 years. We know that all childcare providers, schools and families share concern for the risk to children’s lives on our roads, and Beep Beep! Day is a great way to help them approach this issue.

Hundreds of schools, nurseries and childminders – reaching more than 36,000 children – have signed up to get involved this year and share important road safety messages with youngsters and their parents and carers.

Beep Beep! Days focus on three simple things to help keep young children safer near roads – holding hands with a grown-up when walking, crossing roads at safe places, and always using a child seat when travelling by car. They also send an important reminder to everyone to use roads safely to protect all road users, but especially young children who are so vulnerable on roads.

Everyone who signs up to take part in a Beep Beep! Day receives free teaching resources to help children learn about road safety in a fun and engaging way, including important messages to send home to parents and carers, all illustrated with characters from Aardman’s popular children’s TV programme Timmy Time.

Brake supports families affected by road death and injury

In 2025, Brake’s National Road Victim Service provided specialist emotional and practical support to more than 2,000 families across the UK, helping them cope with their grief and navigate the complex procedures that often follow a road crash.

At any point in time, more than 700 road victim families are receiving support from Brake, including parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and people who have witnessed a traumatic incident. Many of them have been involved in multi-fatality crashes. At present, Brake’s National Road Victim Service is supporting 21 cases that involve the death of a child.