How dangerous is YOUR town? Top 10 regions ranked

Bognor Regis in Bloom, Hull City of Culture, best city for this, best city for that. These days, you can’t move for intercity league tables and town tenders to hold next years annual Crufts meeting. And I’m sick of it. Nothing could be more boring, could it? That’s why some bright spark from Motolegends has compiled a slightly more interesting league table. It’s the Top 10 most Dangerous regions for motorists. So join us as we ask, “How dangerous is your town?”

We might have some of the safest roads in the world, but every day around 70 people are seriously injured on British roads. And whether you’re riding a Honda C90 or driving a Topline 520, an RTA is the last thing you need. So it pays to know where said RTAs are, statistically, most likely to happen.

And the region (by local authority) with the greatest number of accidents since 2009 is… drumroll, if you will… Kent. That’s right, if you’ve had an accident on the road in The Garden of England since 2009, it was one of 49,216. It’s followed (not particularly closely) by its southern neighbours Surrey (43,155) and Essex (34,799). Lancashire (34,740), just misses out on a podium position with 59 fewer RTAs than Essex, and along with Lincolnshire (25,132) (arguably) is one of the only northern regions represented in the top ten. Staffordshire, before you say anything, definitely doesn’t count as ‘northern’.

Danger

This is the top ten highest number of accidents, per county…

Judging by the numbers, it would seem that the further north you go, the safer you’re likely to be. With the exception of the Scilly Isles, who have only reported 18 accidents in the last 12 years; and are about as southern as you can get. But there are only 2,000 people there. Well, 2,000ish. No apparently, for the most part, the northerners tend to be safer drivers. In fact Scotland takes the crown for the safest regions, particularly in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. It must be an Island thing.

Island life

But because there’s hardly anyone living on a lot of those islands, it’s only fair to rank the towns and cities by accident per capita. In all fairness, when you do that, the islands are still pretty safe. And when you do do that, rather than Kent coming out on top, it’s the City of London that’s crowned as the most dangerous place to be a motorist. And in actual fact there are also a few northern (Doncaster, Rotherham) and Scottish (Stirling) towns in the top ten, blowing my ‘northerners are safer drivers’ theory straight out the water. That said, in London, one in three people have had a road accident since 2009; which is fairly worrying if you ask me.

Here is the current league table for accidents per person. How dangerous is your town?

So really, what we’ve learnt is that it doesn’t matter where you are in the country, you can crash your car, bike or lorry and hurt yourself. Or worse. Pouring over statistics is all good and well, but if you’re going to crash, you’re going to crash; it doesn’t matter where in the country you are. And it doesn’t matter how dangerous your town is. So whether you’re in the City of London, or the Isle of Scilly, take care. Look after yourself, wear the proper kit, and don’t become a statistic.

Boothy