It might not be the kind of carnage you would imagine 2 million car crashes to look like, but the new BBC data graphic and corresponding video tells a much more valuable story than a pile of wreckage. The image on this post is actually a graphical map of every injury car crash on the roads of Great Britain at a point in time from 1999 – 2010. Each data point has also been strung together to animate a video that flashes every crash over 24 hours of every day during the entire 12 year period.
It’s actually about 2.4 million crashes total, the data from which have been used to create heat-map images and an animated video of every crash from the past decade. The picture may look like an aerial view of night city lights, but each flash represents an accident in which one or more people were injured.
The data used to create an animated time-lapse video that reveals the most dangerous days and even times as lights pulse and fade over the course of the 12-year period.
This certainly isn’t the most uplifting way to view the continent, but it does give a visual way to identify the most dangerous places to drive, and where there may be areas that need improvement. There are also images and videos for particular cities to pinpoint the most dangerous times and places to do your commute.
You can see more pictures and the time lapse videos on the BBC Website.
