Expert Market has used Department for Transport and DVLA data to reveal that Kinross-shire in East Scotland has the highest concentration of dangerous drivers in the UK.

The report study compares accident rate statistics with driving licence points to reveal which UK counties are home to the best and worst drivers.

The study found that, of all the 63 counties compared in the report, Scotland’s second smallest county, Kinross-shire, was home to the most dangerous drivers. With a rate of 18 accidents per 1,000 people, this small area in Eastern Scotland saw the most traffic accidents of all the counties in the study.                        

The 10 most dangerous places to drive are largely northern counties.

Five of the top 10 are in the northern part of the UK including Kinross-shire in Scotland (first), Dumfriesshire in Scotland (second), Cumbria in the north-west (fourth), West Lothian in Scotland (sixth) and Durham in the north-east (eighth).                        

Recent road casualty figures show that 191 people were killed on Scotland’s roads in 2016 - an increase of 14% from the previous year.

The research found that drivers in Flintshire in North-East Wales had the highest number of average licence points across the whole study. In fact, at 7.8 points per licence, drivers in Flintshire had double the average licence points of drivers in Kinross-shire.

Adelle Kehoe, Expert Market head of research, said: “I certainly wasn’t expecting Scotland to be home to the most dangerous drivers in the UK but I am reassured by the measures that the country are taking to improve this situation.

“There are already plans to introduce life sentences for drivers who cause fatal accidents and hopefully, new Scottish road safety initiatives such as the ‘In Town, Slow Down’ campaign will help to improve accident rates throughout the region.”