Most car-friendly towns revealed

Virgin Money Car Insurance has released results of its annual report into the most car-friendly towns in the UK.

The report looks into different aspects of each town and how these relate to the driving experience. Parking costs, petrol prices, the number of speed cameras, car parks and the levels of car crime are all taken into account to come up with the list of the most car-friendly places.

The most car-friendly town overall was revealed as St Helens in Merseyside. This knocked Telford in Shropshire off the top spot, (a position that it had held for the last two years) and into second place.

As might be expected, the worst place in the UK was London. This was partly due to the fact that London boasts 600 speed cameras. It is a position that London is used to as it has also held the worst spot for the last three years in a row.

Third place in the table was Blackburn, in fourth was Dudley in the West Midlands, and Derby came in fifth.

At the other end of the table, but better than London, were Manchester, Reading, Glasgow and Watford.

In all, the 65 biggest towns and cities in the UK were researched in order to find out the results.

Grant Bather from Virgin Money said that although the 24 million drivers in the country are often “driven to distraction” by all the frustrations of driving, “many local authorities do their best to ensure drivers aren’t treated like second-class citizens”. He admitted that everyone would have a different idea about what constituted “driving hell”, and that the research aimed to show the best and worst towns and cities for drivers.