The A96 is one of the busiest and most prominent roads connecting the north and north-east.
And with high volumes of traffic comes collisions. But the full extent has never really been reported on.
Now, we’ve pulled together official statistics and combined it with our own reporting from stories we’ve covered in the past year to create exclusive analysis and bring a picture of how many accidents occur on the A96.
Data included within this tracker for 2019 to 2023 is using statistics on casualties and collisions from the Department for Transport.
The data is based on A96 accidents that have been reported to the police.
Official data is subject to a lag, so information for 2024 and 2025 has been added using information on crashes that Press and Journal reporters have written articles on.
Official statistics for 2024 will be added when it becomes available in late 2025.
The majority of statistics include collisions where at least one vehicle was involved, and at least one person was injured, where the incident was reported to the police.
The A96 connects Aberdeen and Inverness. Image by Sandy McCook/DC Thomson
Information given to the police is then reported to the Department for Transport via a collection method called STATS19.
Vehicles involved do not have to be motor vehicles – statistics can also include other conveyances, such as horses and bicycles.
A96 crashes
Each incident included within the map is given a ranking of how serious the crash was.
Collision severity is based on the severity of the most severely injured casualty.
These include fatal, where crashes have caused death less than 30 days after the accident; serious, where casualties have injuries which may include fractures, concussions, internal injuries, crushing, burns, severe cuts and severe general shock which requires medical treatment; and slight, where casualties are slightly injured, such as having a sprain, whiplash, bruises or cuts which are not judged to be severe.
Slight also includes injuries which do not require medical treatment.
The map below shows the locations of crashes that have occurred between 2019 and 2023.
Locations are provided by the Department for Transport statistics.
The year a crash occurred is marked by a different coloured marker, and hovering over each marker will provide more information about the collision.
You can click on the legend on the left hand side to hide or show each individual year, if you would like to see only one, or a selection of years.
The map below includes crashes that have happened in 2024. This data is taken from our own reporting.
This means location may be estimated based on the best knowledge available.
When do crashes take place?
We analysed both the official data and data gathered from our own reporting to build a picture of when accidents are occurring on the A96.
The chart below shows the number of crashes that occur at each time of the day.
We have also looked at the days and months of the year where the most collisions take place.
The below chart shows the months of the year.
The human impact
When discussing collisions on a major road, it’s important to remember the people involved.
The chart below shows the number of vehicles that have been involved in collisions from 2019 to the present day.
This has been organised by the number of vehicles that have been involved in each individual crash – from single-vehicle accidents to those with many vehicles.
Meanwhile, the chart below shows the number of people who have been injured in collisions from 2019 to the present day.
It does not reference severity, as this information is not always available from Police Scotland for crashes that we have included from our own reporting.
If this information is available, it will be included in the map.
Accident tracker methodology
Data included in this tracker is a mix of data from the UK Government Department for Transport and data collected manually by the Press and Journal’s live news journalists.
For the government statistics, the spreadsheets for vehicles, casualties and collisions for each year were joined together using Python.
A schema for the codes used within the release was obtained using R, and was joined together with columns used manually.
From there, the data was filtered on road type A, and road number 96 to obtain crashes for the A96.
Data for the 2024 crashes has been manually collated by Press and Journal live news reporters, and is based on crashes that the team has reported on.
The information included is taken from what was made public or given to reporters by Police Scotland, and may not be as in-depth as official reporting.
This also means that not all crashes that happen will likely appear on the map, as many crashes may be minor or may go unreported to either Police Scotland, which provides statistics to the Government, or by the Press and Journal.
Where to see more on the A96..
We will continue to publish stories in our A96 series over the next few weeks.
You can read more here: