Toyota Prius named UK’s most accident-prone car

The Toyota Prius has been named the UK’s most accident-prone car, being involved in 111 crashes for every 10,000 examples of the model on the road.

Data from GoCompare shows there were around 71,000 Priuses registered in the UK in 2016, with 787 accidents in the same year involving the model.

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Second place went to the Citroen Saxo, which had an accident rate of 106 out of every 10,000 examples. The BMW 330d was third with 102 out of every 10,000 being involved in a crash.

In terms of brands as a whole, Vauxhall was the most accident-prone. There were around 3.6 million of the manufacturer’s models registered in the UK in 2016, with 22,490 accidents that year involving them – a rate of 62 out of every 10,000 examples.

Meanwhile, Daewoo and SEAT were in joint second-place, each with an accident rate of 60 out of every 10,000 of their models.

Although the youngest demographic of drivers are typically regarded as the most accident-prone, GoCompare’s data suggests that those aged between 26 and 35-years-old are actually involved in more crashes, with the age group being involved in 23.94 per cent of all incidents in 2016.

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London was the most dangerous region, with 101 of every 10,000 cars in the city being involved in a crash in 2016. The City of London was especially bad, with 1,200 of every 10,000 cars in the borough having an accident that year.

The second-worst overall region was Yorkshire and the Humber, with 47 accidents per 10,000 cars. As for roads, the A4 was the worst, with 705 crashes in 2016.

While you might expect higher speed limits to result in more accidents, that wasn’t the case. In 2016, there were 79,569 crashes in 30mph zones – nearly 10 times the number that occurred on roads with 70mph speed limits.

In fact, the closest runner-up to 30mph limits was 60mph zones, which saw 16,723 accidents in 2016.

Are you surprised by these findings? Let us know in the comments below...