Motoring
Every year 700,000 motorists shunt, scrape or prang another parked car, leaving innocent UK drivers with an estimated £1.25 billion repair bill, according to new research by accident management specialist, Accident Exchange.
Analysis of more than 100,000 accidents between 2006 and 2008 revealed that around one in five of all reported road incidents involved damage to a parked vehicle. With the cost of repair averaging £1,800, about 80 percent of these Parked Car Incidents (PCIs) occurred on the street and the remainder in public car parks.
London topped the twenty-five worst cities in Britain for PCIs; with nearly 1 in 10 ‘parked car’ crashes handled by Accident Exchange were recorded in the Capital, resulting in an annual repair bill of £119m.
This was followed by Glasgow, who despite having only 197,000 registered cars in the city, Glaswegian drivers racked up an annual repair bill of £23.8 million making it the second worst parking spot in the UK.
Birmingham, Manchester and Norwich completed the top five. However the least likely places to prang the parked car, in descending order was Bradford, Swindon and Cheltenham / Gloucester
Contributing factors to the PCI problem are increased congestion on residential streets and competition for car park spaces.
Tell me about it! Some of the fighting I have witnessed between drivers over a car park space could warrant a new category for the Olympics!
Jackie Violet – Female First