All Sections

Official: White Audi diesel drivers are the worst

Bad news if you’re male, aged between 21 and 25, own a white manual diesel Audi, work as a manager, live in Scotland and have no Children. You’re the worst driver in the UK, apparently.

That’s according to telematics data from insurance broker Admiral, which found those who fit that exact description are statistically the worst drivers on the road.

The very best drivers, meanwhile, are female, aged between 46 and 50, drive a red automatic Honda, work as a software engineer, live in East Anglia and have children.

The figures reveal East Anglians are the safest drivers overall, scoring 59 per cent, compared with the least safe region, Scotland, and its score of 51 per cent. This is despite East Anglians driving the most miles per year.

Liverpool is home to the best drivers, scoring 61 per cent, while Birmingham and its overall score of 50 per cent made it home to the worst, closely followed by Leeds (also 50 per cent) and Manchester (51 per cent). London scored 56 per cent.

Now for the argument-inducing element of the results: men versus women. Bad news blokes, women are safer (58 per cent versus 53). Admiral did, however, acknowledge the fact men drive 7,004 miles per year – 564 miles more than the average woman, who is in the car for 6,440 miles a year.

It also noted that men being in the car for longer meant they were more likely to face ‘riskier times’ and ‘bad weather’. Not that men slowed down for either, with men spending more time speeding.

As for age, those between 56 and 60 are the safest (64 per cent score), with 46-50 year olds coming in second place (59 per cent) and third going to 36 to 40 year olds (also 59 per cent).

Unsurprisingly, younger drivers fared the worst but those aged between 17 and 20 actually came in fifth, with a driver rating of 57 per cent. The worst drivers are, in fact, those aged between 21 and 25, followed by 26 to 30 year olds.

Going against the old drivers are the worst stereotype, retired drivers came first by occupation, scoring 78 per cent – although this could be down to the fact they barely go anywhere. Warehouse employees (who probably rack up more miles) were the worst, scoring just 30 per cent.

The study even looked at fuel types. If you guessed diesel or hybrid drivers are the safest, think again. Both scored 50 per cent, compared with 56 per cent for petrol cars.

Red was statistically the safest colour, followed by green, orange and black, respectively. Yellow came out bottom by a significant margin, followed by white.

Admiral telematics development executive Lloyd Badran said: “While it’s fascinating to create these in-depth profiles of good and bad drivers, which we can do with great precision, there is a useful side to this.

“Telematics data allows us to provide fairer prices to customers that reflect their driving ability rather than being based on the risk profiles of similar types of people. We believe safe drivers should be rewarded for their efforts.

“We can see that there are general trends in different demographics and driving ability. Younger people tend to score lower than others, which could be partly due to experience, but it does show that perhaps younger people do need more information about safe driving.”

Telematics devices becoming more common among drivers who are willing to let an insurer track their driving habits in exchange for cheaper insurance premiums, but critics have argued they are an invasion of privacy and there have been horror stories of hidden fines.

Admiral declined to say how many cars have telematics installed. An interactive display of the findings can be viewed here.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *