OBJECTIVE: To examine trends in road death rates for child pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants. DESIGN: Analysis of road traffic injury death rates per 100 000 children and death rates per 10 million passenger miles travelled. SETTING: England and Wales between 1985 and 2003. PARTICIPANTS: Children aged 0-14 years. INTERVENTIONS: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Death rates per 100,000 children and per 10 million child passenger miles for pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants. RESULTS: Death rates per head of population have declined for child pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants but pedestrian death rates remain higher (0.55 deaths/100,000 children; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.42 to 0.72 deaths) than those for car occupants (0.34 deaths; 95% CI 0.23 to 0.48 deaths) and cyclists (0.16 deaths; 95% CI 0.09 to 0.27 deaths). Since 1985, the average distance children travelled as a car occupant has increased by 70%; the average distance walked has declined by 19%; and the average distance cycled has declined by 58%. Taking into account distance travelled, there are about 50 times more child cyclist deaths (0.55 deaths/10 million passenger miles; 0.32 to 0.89) and nearly 30 times more child pedestrian deaths (0.27 deaths; 0.20 to 0.35) than there are deaths to child car occupants (0.01 deaths; 0.007 to 0.014). In 2003, children from families without access to a vehicle walked twice the distance walked by children in families with access to two or more vehicles. CONCLUSIONS: More needs to be done to reduce the traffic injury death rates for child pedestrians and cyclists. This might encourage more walking and cycling and also has the potential to reduce social class gradients in injury mortality.