The WORST cities for driving in Britain have been revealed – is yours listed?

THE WORST cities for driving have been revealed after a study into eight different factors important to motorists.

The list was compiled by assessing congestion, the number of crashes between 2017 and 2021, cars versus car park space numbers, EV charging point availability, air quality, road condition and the number of active bus routes.

1

The study, carried out by Wessex Fleet, ranked each of the factors above from 1-25, the city with the lowest overall score was ranked the best city to drive in, the city with the most points was deemed the worst.

Of the 25 major cities in the UK assessed, it was Bristol that was found to be the hardest to drive through.

It ranked in the bottom five places for all of the variables, its lowest being road condition where it scored 24 out of 25.

It was closely followed by Bradford and then Birmingham, also proving a real headache for drivers to navigate through.

The rest of the top 10 was made up of Brighton and Hove, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent, Leeds, Sheffield, Swansea and Liverpool.

At the other end of the scale, the easiest city to drive through turned out to be Reading, which ranked highly for it’s number of car parking spaces, low level of congestion, and number of EV chargers. 

Stoke-on-Trent had the least city centre crashes from 2017-2021, while unsurprisingly London recorded the worst numbers with 1,359 crashes. 

Edinburgh keeps drivers waiting the longest with the highest congestion times ranked at 35% in 2021. Coventry, Reading and Stoke all were 17%. 

Coventry has the highest number of EV charging devices per 100,000 people. It has 132 (to the nearest round number) charging points per 100,000 people. Stoke had the the least.

Brighton had the worst air quality index score, ranking last with an average score of 29 (rounded to one decimal place). 

Hull and Sunderland have the best quality road surfaces, while Portsmouth has the least bus routes – London has the most.