Portsmouth named second-worst UK city for crashes caused by driver error

Only the London borough of Tower Hamlets appears ahead of the city in data released today by private number plate specialists regtransfer.co.uk. 

The firm found on average 55 per cent of all crashes here are down to mistakes made by motorists.

Meanwhile that number is slightly less severe across the Hampshire as a whole '“ inclusive of Fareham, Gosport and Havant '“ sitting at 50.9 per cent. 

Tower Hamlets peaks the list at 57.8 per cent, while the average across the nation is 47.2 per cent '“ making error the most common cause of accidents in Britain. 

In Portsmouth, the data found poor judgement from motorists causes 10.5 per cent of accidents, pedestrian error causes 9.2 per cent, driver inexperience leads to nine per cent and impairments and distractions account for 6.3 per cent of crashes. 

Further figures for Hampshire showed 15.9 per cent of county accidents are down to driver inexperience, 10.9 per cent of county accidents are accounted for by poor judgement, distractions cause 8.9 per cent, while pedestrians on average cause just five per cent. 

On the data, Rick Cager, of Regtransfers said: '˜Road safety is everyone's responsibility. '˜We hope by showing the sheer number of road casualties in Britain, it will make people more aware of what is  most likely to cause an accident, and therefore hopefully prevent it from happening.

'˜Thankfully new accident reporting systems which we are seeing more and more of means we are gathering better data than ever on the harm being done on the roads, so lessons can be learned and best practice shared across the country to help bring down these high figures.'