Driving around Dorset.
Understand the wider traffic picture, discuss local driving skills and find useful next steps.
Annual traffic
2,524
Million motor-vehicle miles during 2025.
A measure of travel across this authority area, not the number of vehicles, a road’s daily flow or current congestion. DfT asks that these figures be rounded to the nearest million miles.
Reported injury collisions
675
Police-reported personal-injury collisions during 2025.
12 fatal collisions. This counts collisions, not people killed. Damage-only incidents and unreported collisions are outside this dataset.
Traffic over time
| Year | All motor vehicles | Cars and taxis |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 2,524 | 1,929 |
| 2024 | 2,479 | 1,891 |
| 2023 | 2,462 | 1,877 |
| 2022 | 2,391 | 1,816 |
| 2021 | 2,323 | 1,748 |
| 2020 | 2,043 | 1,523 |
| 2019 | 2,625 | 2,045 |
Road setting
| Setting | Collisions |
|---|---|
| Single carriageway | 575 |
| Dual carriageway | 42 |
| Roundabout | 37 |
| One way street | 16 |
| Slip road | 5 |
Light conditions
| Setting | Collisions |
|---|---|
| Daylight | 520 |
| Darkness - no lighting | 97 |
| Darkness - lights lit | 45 |
| Darkness - lighting unknown | 11 |
| Darkness - lights unlit | 2 |
Traffic exposure, area size, road mix and reporting vary. These are counts, not comparable collision rates. Ask your instructor to choose practice environments suited to your current ability and current conditions.
Plan useful practice
Work with a qualified supervisor and agree goals with your instructor.
Check today’s conditions
Official roadworks, travel and weather services.
Teach and reflect
Planning, CPD and tools for instructor development.
Sources and matching
Traffic: DfT road traffic downloads. Collisions: DfT STATS19 2025. We match the traffic authority code to the collision’s current highway-authority code; this does not assign an instructor or test centre to that area. Local traffic estimates are less robust than regional totals. Download the source metadata and full history.