Aberdeen has been named as the UK area with the least amount of road accidents, coming ahead of four other Scottish cities in the top 10.
The research, from Bill Plant driving school, set out to establish the best places to get your driving licence and the safest places to drive, using data from 2021-2022.
Once new drivers had their licence, Aberdeen was the safest city on the UK to drive with 32 A road accidents and 38 minor accidents, a total of 70 accidents.
Falkirk, in second place, had just 12 more accidents than Aberdeen with the majority of accidents classed as minor.
Dumfries, in fourth place, recorded just 112 road accidents to claim fourth place. However, Dumfries is the first entry in the top five where the majority of its accidents were classified as A road incidents.
In fifth place is Perth with 130 road accidents over the period. However, like Dumfries, the majority of the road accidents in Perth were A road accidents with marginally more minor accidents.
Dundee took seventh place in the UK for safe driving with a total of 147 accidents.
When it comes to learner drivers, the research found that Aberdeen has 24,128 provisional licence holders per 100,000 people, with 106 approved driving instructors per 100,000 people. Between 2021-22 the average driving test pass rate was 60.6%.
Female and male driving test pass rates
Regarding driving test pass rate, Aberdeen, the third most populous city in Scotland, was in fourth place, with a female pass rate of 58.6% and a male pass rate of 62.9%, a total pass rate of 60.6%.
Perth, in second place, had a total driving test pass rate of 61.4% (female 57.1%, 45.2% male).
Dundee (11th place) had a pass rate of 56.7% (female 53.8% and male 58.1%).
Breaking down the gender-specific pass rates further, a recent study by A-Plan Insurance examined the pass rate of major UK driving test centres since April 2020 to find the one with the highest female and male pass rate.
Cove driving test centre has highest UK pass rate for males
It found that of all the UK driving test centres, the one at Cove, Aberdeen, had the highest pass rate for males with an average pass rate of 69%. The pass rate for women was 64.2% – the fifth-highest overall in the UK.
Lee On The Solent had the highest female pass rate with an average pass rate of 67%.
A spokesperson for A-Plan Insurance said: “This analysis highlights the geographical disparity of pass rates for men and women in the UK.
“A driving test is often a stressful time in someone’s life and can be both exciting and daunting.
“The considerable difference for men and women at some of the UK’s major test centres is fascinating.
“It will be interesting to see if these differences become wider, stay consistent, or balance out in the future.”
- All data for the Bill Plant index ranking was taken from government sources. In the Pass Rates data, results were omitted where less than 1,000 driving tests were carried out.
