The town of Smethwick in the West Midlands is home to the worst chauffeurs in the UK, it’s official. That’s according to the most recent 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 chauffeurs in Smethwick who picked up bans was the highest of anywhere across the country.
Advertisement – short article continues below

Banned chauffeurs 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 chauffeurs banned in 2012.
To calculate our figures car 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 chauffeurs 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 chauffeurs disqualified (0.09 per cent).
London was home to the highest total of chauffeurs banned in 2012, at 9,336. However, with practically 2,497,931 chauffeurs holding licences in the capital, the percentage figure of 0.37 is small in comparison.