New Research Reveals Which Counties Have Britain’s Least Safe Vehicles

New research conducted by Intelligent Car Leasing shows a complete breakdown of driving licence penalty points applied for unsafe vehicles and unsafe vehicle usage across all counties in the UK.

Intelligent Car Leasing submitted a freedom of information request to the DVLA asking for details of all ‘Construction and Use’ offence penalty points (endorsements) applied to UK driving licences in 2013. These results were broken down by DVLA recognised counties allowing the data to be filtered to show the counties with the best and worst overall vehicle conditions.

‘Construction and Use’ offenses are those which put points on your licence for having a physically defective/unsafe car or driving in a way which reduces your control of the vehicle, something which is much less of a worry when leasing a new car. Examples include defective brakes, steering, tyres, unsafe loads and using a mobile phone whilst driving.

Understanding the numbers

As you would guess every county has a different population size and therefore the raw data for number of penalties applied in 2013 was not directly comparable from area one to the next.

To deal with this each county’s population was recorded and a ‘points per capita’ statistic was calculated. The numbers below are the total amount of ‘Construction and Use’ offences per 10,000 residents for each county.

Best and Worst Counties

Stirling has the worst vehicle condition and usage record in the UK

Stirling has the highest construction and use penalty points in the UK — Attribution: Donald McDonald

Stirling in Central Scotland has the worst record out of all counties for vehicle construction and use offences. With calculations showing just under 100 offences per 10,000 residents the city of Stirling and its surrounding boroughs takes the crown.

Gloucestershire has the best vehicle condition and usage record in the UK

Gloucestershire has the safest cars in the uk — Attribution: Ralph Rawlinson

Gloucestershire in South West England has the best record out of all counties for vehicle construction and use offences. With calculations showing a meager 4.99 offences per 10,000 residents this sizeable county has the safest vehicles in the UK.

Individual Penalties

When looking at the number of penalties recorded for individual offences in the ‘construction and use’ category you find quite a wide spread amongst the counties posting the highest numbers:

Moray North Scotland – Defective brakes (CU10)
Caerphilly South Wales – Unsuitable or generally dangerous vehicle (CU20)
Caerphilly South Wales – Defective tyres (CU30)
Edinburgh (City) and Greater London – Defective steering (CU40)
Durham North East England – Unsafe load or passengers (CU50)
Stirling Central Scotland – Breach of requirements to control the vehicle (CU80)

Full Table Of Results (Aggregated Penalties)

COUNTY	CONSTRUCTION AND USE’ OFFENCES PER 10,000 RESIDENTS
1. Stirling	99.67
2. Durham	99.37
3. Caerphilly	94.77
4. East Ayrshire	83.17
5. North Lanarkshire	82.66
6. West Dumbartonshire	81.87
7. South Lanarkshire	79.94
8. South Ayrshire	74.78
9. East Renfrewshire	72.97
10. Renfrewshire	71.03
11. East Dumbartonshire	69.24
12. North Ayrshire	65.51
13. Glasgow City	63.24
14. West Lothian	61.60
15. Wrexham	59.89
16. Inverclyde	56.17
17. Dumfried and Galloway	53.71
18. Falkirk	47.32
19. Perth and Kinross	44.29
20. Fife	43.32
21. East Lothian	41.50
22. Midlothian	40.12
23. Clackmannanshire	39.41
24. Carmarthenshire	37.76
25. Pembrokeshire	36.44
26. Argyll and Bute	33.67
27. Dundee City	32.70
28. Scottish Borders	31.49
29. Gwynedd	31.09
30. Angus	29.94
31. Moray	28.49
32. Aberdeenshire	28.43
33. Greater London	28.03
34. Merthyr Tydfil	27.88
35. Cambridgeshire	27.42
36. Aberdeen City	26.40
37. Edinburgh, City of	26.11
38. Highland	25.39
39. Isle of Anglesey	24.39
40. Denbighshire	24.33
41. Conwy	23.70
42. Flintshire	23.41
43. Cleveland	23.07
44. Ceredigion	22.92
45. Essex	22.61
46. Cumbria	21.31
47. Powys	21.05
48. Bedfordshire	18.67
49. Rhondda, Cynon, Taff	18.56
50. Shetland Islands	18.26
51. Wiltshire	18.07
52. Newport	17.55
53. Blaenau Gwent	16.33
54. Swansea	16.28
55. Nearth Port Talbot	15.67
56. Hertfordshire	14.99
57. Surrey	14.46
58. Torfaen	14.38
59. Orkney Islands	13.81
60. Berkshire	13.73
61. Eilean Siar	13.37
62. Cardiff	13.23
63. Suffolk	13.01
64. Cheshire	13.01
65. Kent	12.76
66. Norfolk	12.67
67. Northumberland	12.63
68. Buckinghamshire	12.40
69. Avon	12.09
70. Tyne and Wear	11.83
71. Bridgend	11.78
72. West Yorkshire	11.77
73. Leicestershire	10.21
74. County of Herefordshire UA	10.02
75. Lancashire	9.64
76. Monmouthshire	9.53
77. The Vale of Glamorgan	9.03
78. West Midlands	8.68
79. Dorset	8.65
80. Merseyside	8.52
81. North Yorkshire	8.47
82. Lincolnshire	8.02
83. Cornwall and Isles of Scilly	7.99
84. Nottinghamshire	7.76
85. Warwickshire	7.75
86. Oxfordshire	7.68
87. East Sussex	7.51
88. West Sussex	7.43
89. Northamptonshire	7.38
90. East Yorkshire	7.13
91. South Yorkshire	6.98
92. Hampshire	6.88
93. Devon	6.52
94. Greater Manchester	6.51
95. Worcestershire	6.48
96. Saffordshire	6.35
97. Shropshire	6.31
98. Derbyshire	5.36
99. Somerset	5.28
100. Gloucestershire	4.99

Get The Full Findings

If you would like to download the full findings of this research (broken down by individual penalties) then you can download the data here.

We kindly ask that you attribute IntelligentCarLeasing.com when referencing or redistributing the results of this study in any way.

This entry was posted in Reports & Research on March 24, 2014 by Marc Murphy

Categories : Reports & Research