UK drivers have collective 10.6m points on their licences
British motorists share a whopping 10.6m points between them
DRIVERS in the United Kingdom have amassed a collective 10.6m points on their licences, according to new research.
More than 2.7m motorists in the UK (6.65% of the 40.8m licence holders) were found to have at least one point on their licence in March this year, according to Vantage Leasing, amounting to 10,620,498 points between them — or around four points on average for every driver with a conviction.
The worst offenders — with 12 points or more, which is enough for a driver to be automatically banned from getting back behind the wheel — made up only a small percentage of those with convictions but still amounted to 11,021 people.
Drivers can continue driving with more than 12 points, if a judge allows it. Official statistics from the DVLA showed that 269 British drivers had at least 20 points on their licence in March this year, and 31 had amassed a minimum of 30 penalty points.
A 41-year-old man from East Sussex had a colossal 60 points to his name, according to Vantage Leasing, with the next worst offender being a 25-year old woman from Nottinghamshire who had amassed 48 penalty points.
With 2.9m of its residents holding driving licences, London has perhaps unsurprisingly the largest numbers of car users with points on their licence. According to the data, 136,627 drivers (or around one-in-20 of the city’s motorists) had at least one point to their name, of which 969 had 12 points or more.
The highest concentration of drivers with points on their licence can be found further north, towards West Yorkshire. Nearly one-in-10 of the 111,820 motorists living in the “HX” Halifax postcode area had amassed at least one point, of which 44 had enough points to be disqualified from driving.
A similar proportion of motorists in the nearby “BD” Bradford postcode area also had convictions, and a marginally lower percentage (9.04%) were found to live in the similarly-local “HD” boundary for Huddersfield.
Of the 10 postal codes with the highest proportion of drivers with points on their licences, seven cover areas in Yorkshire.
At the other end of the spectrum, the region with the best-behaved motorists was Canterbury, with just 3.72% of its drivers having points on their licences, followed by Tunbridge Wells (4.16%) and Bromley (4.25%).
While the top three are all regions that cover Kent, the top 10 was more geographically spread out; encompassing places like Brighton on the Sussex coast and Exeter in Devon.
Revealed: Britain’s worst driving regions
| Postcode | Number of penalty points | Number of licenced drivers | Share of drivers with penalty points |
| Halifax (HX) | 10,758 | 111,820 | 9.62% |
| Bradford (BD) | 34,455 | 364,162 | 9.46% |
| Huddersfield (HD) | 16,593 | 183,465 | 9.04% |
| Bristol (BS) | 61,761 | 719,724 | 8.58% |
| Doncaster (DN) | 44,786 | 524,470 | 8.54% |
| Wakefield (WF) | 29,403 | 350,953 | 8.38% |
| Leeds (LS) | 41,823 | 504,336 | 8.29% |
| Luton (LU) | 20,137 | 307,502 | 8.14% |
| Slough (SL) | 24,734 | 307,502 | 8.04% |
| Harrogate (HG) | 8,785 | 109,682 | 8.01% |
…and the regions with the best-behaved motorists
| Postcode | Number of penalty points | Number of licenced drivers | Share of drivers with penalty points |
| Canterbury (CT) | 12,254 | 329,679 | 3.72% |
| Tunbridge Wells (TN) | 22,100 | 531,329 | 4.16% |
| Bromley (BR) | 9,688 | 227,968 | 4.25% |
| Cambridge (CB) | 13,042 | 306,159 | 4.26% |
| Truro (TR) | 10,508 | 228,640 | 4.60% |
| London | 136,693 | 2,925,636 | 4.67% |
| Exeter (EX) | 19,967 | 425,781 | 4.69% |
| Harrow (HA) | 17,074 | 361,389 | 4.72% |
| Brighton (BN) | 27,990 | 572,329 | 4.89% |
| Torquay (TQ) | 10,786 | 219,706 | 4.91% |
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