UK's worst drivers named and shamed
Statistics showing numbers of disqualified drivers by location highlight the worst drivers in the UK
The town of Smethwick in the West Midlands is home to the worst drivers in the UK, it's official. That's according to the latest available data showing the number of motorists living there who've been disqualified from driving.
Figures from the DVLA for 2012 show that the percentage of licence-holding drivers in Smethwick who picked up bans was the highest of anywhere across the country.
Banned drivers made up 0.77 per cent of licence holders in the Smethwick area. West Bromwich was a close second at 0.73 per cent, tied with Barking in East London, which had the same percentage of drivers banned in 2012.
To calculate our figures Auto Express only considered towns or cities categorised by the DVLA that had a minimum of 20,000 licence holders. This was to ensure our data was robust.
The UK's best drivers live in Harpenden
At the other end of the scale, Harpenden in Hertfordshire has the best behaved drivers. Of the 23,347 motorists there, only 19 picked up a ban in 2012 – a tiny 0.08 per cent.
This was closely followed by Rayleigh, Essex, which had 20 out of 22,606 drivers disqualified (0.09 per cent).
London was home to the highest total of drivers banned in 2012, at 9,336. However, with almost 2,497,931 drivers holding licences in the capital, the percentage figure of 0.37 is small in comparison.
In total, 113,646 drivers were banned across England, Scotland and Wales. England made up the majority of these with 95,965, although it has the largest amount of drivers, with 32,691,802 on the road.
Just over 10,000 of the 3.1m licence holders in Scotland were disqualified in 2012, while 7,339 drivers out of a possible 1.8 million in Wales were handed a ban.
This put Wales top of the home nations bad behaviour chart with 0.39 per cent, ahead of Scotland (0.33) and England (0.29).
Below is our table of UK towns and cities with the worst drivers...
| Location | No. of licence holders | No. banned in 2012 | % banned in 2012 |
| Smethwick | 20,914 | 160 | 0.77% |
| West Bromwich | 26,101 | 191 | 0.73% |
| Barking | 22,591 | 164 | 0.73% |
| Nelson | 23,942 | 162 | 0.68% |
| Bradford | 166,171 | 1084 | 0.65% |
| Tipton | 20,736 | 131 | 0.63% |
| Merthyr Tydfil | 26,153 | 163 | 0.62% |
| Peterhead | 21,872 | 131 | 0.60% |
| Wishaw | 21,769 | 130 | 0.60% |
| Dagenham | 51,576 | 308 | 0.60% |
Do you live in one of the places with the best or worst behaved drivers in the UK? Tell us what you think about the driving in your area on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments section at the bottom of this page...
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