Liverpool’s lawless drivers speed to top of the penalty points league

• One in eight drivers in the city have points on licence for traffic offences
• But Scotland tops the list with four out of the five worst areas for offences
• In Glasgow, one in seven drivers has penalty points on their licence
• Motorists in the 'EC' postcode of London are the country's best behaved

If you happen to be driving through Liverpool, you might want to take a little more care than usual.
Inhabitants of the city are some of the dodgiest drivers – clocking up more penalty points than any other place in England and Wales.
Figures have revealed that the city has the highest proportion of motorists with points on their licence, with one in eight drivers picking up endorsements for speeding or other driving offences.

Penalty points: A survey has revealed motorists in Liverpool commit the most traffic offences in England

Out of the 433,425 licensed drivers in the city, some 52,179 – or 12 per cent – have at least one point. And 1,802 people have collected a staggering nine or more points.
Liverpool was followed by Bournemouth where 11.5 per cent of drivers have points.
Other places on the list include Blackburn, Slough, Dorchester, Sunderland, Warrington, Chester, Manchester and Nottingham.

By contrast the area of England with the lowest proportion of penalty point transgressors is the ‘EC’ postcode of London, where just one in 18 has been caught committing a driving offence.
The area’s well-behaved motorists are followed by Truro in Cornwall, the ‘WC’ London postcode, Canterbury and Exeter.

But across the whole of the UK it is the Scots who are the penalty points leaders of Britain.
Motoring magazine Auto Express, who have analysed the figures in their latest edition, said: ‘The city of Glasgow and the surrounding area make up four of the five worst areas for driving offences.’
In Glasgow alone, one in seven of the city’s 634,252 drivers have points. Motherwell landed in second place, followed by Kilmarnock and Paisley.
The magazine added: ‘Liverpool may have the worst penalty point rate in England, with around 12 per cent of licensed drivers possessing endorsements.
‘But four of the other worst five postcodes in the UK for driving offences come from around the Glasgow area.’
However representatives of the charity who provided the original data rushed to defend Glaswegian drivers, saying the spike was simply down to high levels of traffic policing around the city.
Cycling charity CTC’s policy co-ordinator Chris Peck said: ‘It just can’t be just down to driver behaviour that one in eight Glasgow drivers has penalty points, but just one in 20 has in Shetland.’
Worst performers in Wales are Swansea where one in 10 (10 per cent) of the 462,165 drivers have points and Newport (also 10 per cent) - both just ahead of Bradford (10 per cent).
Nationally, across the UK more than 3.3 million motorists have endorsements on their licences – or 8.9 per cent of the total. And 97,562 have nine points or more.
Across the UK, Lerwick in the Shetland Islands has the lowest proportion of licensed drivers with points where just four per cent of the 14,956 drivers have endorsements, followed by the Outer Hebrides (4.9 per cent).
Cycling charity CTC which provided the original data believes the wide discrepancies between areas is mainly due to differing levels of traffic policing.
The charity’s policy co-ordinator Chris  Peck said: ‘It can’t be just down to driver behaviour that one in eight Glasgow drivers has penalty points, but just one in 20 has in Shetland.
'The loss of road traffic policing hasn’t been even. Overall, there are a third  fewer road traffic police today than there were 10 years ago – but the reduction has been greater in some forces than in others.’

 

Streets ahead: Drivers in Glasgow are the worst offenders in the UK, where one in seven has points