Recent data published by the Department of Transport and analysed by Car.co.uk has uncovered where both the UK’s naughtiest drivers reside as well as detailing where you can find the highest proportion of clean licence holders, those lucky few with 0 points on their licence. Whilst the data provided represents those in Great Britain who are licence holders and may not necessarily be active motorists it does show a national comparison. 

Car.co.uk’s team have calculated that 93.38% of all licence holders currently have a clean licence with 0 points, as at the end of February 2020. Regions above the average were largely concentrated in the North of England. 

However, it is worth mentioning that this dataset could be skewed as many licence holders may not be active drivers, instead relying on public transport or now residing in more urban areas. Could this be the reason for London claiming the title of GB’s squeakiest clean drivers or could it be the dreadful traffic often encountered by Londoners? 

The DVLA have also expressed that this data may not be 100% correct as it may contain licence holders who have unfortunately passed away or emigrated. Disclaimers aside, here is Car.co.uk’s ranking of naughtiest drivers by Region:

Yorkshire North East of England Wales West Midlands East Midlands North West of England South West of England East of England Scotland South East of England Greater London

Where exactly did we find the naughtiest Motorists?

1. Halifax
2. Bradford
3. Huddersfield
4. Leeds
5. Slough
6. Wakefield
7. Doncaster
8. Northampton
9. Sunderland
10. Bristol

Which districts had the cleanest current records?

1. Central London
2. Canterbury
3. South West London
4. West London
5. Bromley
6. Cambridge
7. Lerwick
8. North West London
9. Outer Hebrides
10. Tonbridge

Another observation from the Car.co.uk team is that the reliance on using postcode districts codes, as provided by Data.gov.uk is the variations in size of different outward codes. Here, the largest postal district is Birmingham with 1.118 million licence holders and an average of 346k in the dataset. 

Other facts provided by this dataset as at February 2020:

• Currently there are 2 provisional licence holders over 100
• There are over 41 million licence holders in Great Britain therefore approximately 66% of the population are licensed to drive (including those not of legal age)
• Females represent 45% of all licence holders
• The average holder age is 49 years implying a decline in young people holding a licence

The data referenced was licensed under Open Government Licence 3.0.