If you were to be asked about who had the best driving experience in the world you might be tempted to suggest America but actually China offers good results as well. OSV Ltd, who are independent vehicle specialists have examined data and looked at what factors different countries can provide for drivers. When they looked at road trips – USA came out top and were top for fuel prices in the western world and 33rd worldwide. Somewhat unexpectedly China was second for road trips and quality of roads along with third for fuel. This helped them secure first place with USA when it came to an overall driving experience, UK came third in the list. Despite UK fuel prices being some of the worst, the road death statistics were very favourable taking the UK to number one. They also did well in the category of enforcing driving rules with a joint third, while securing overall third place for pollution and congestion.
A number of different factors were used to rank the countries, highlighting how friendly the country was to drivers, fuel prices, road deaths per 1,000 capita, road trips, pollution & congestion, road quality and driving rules enforcement.
So with China and USA being joint top and UK in third how did the rest of the world fair? Germany made it into fourth place helped by its first placing for congestion and second placing for road deaths. Australia came fifth with a second for fuel prices and third for road trips, France were in sixth place with second for congestion and third for road quality. Japan at 7th was best for road quality, third for road deaths and fourth for pollution and congestion. In eighth place was South Africa jointly with Brazil and India.
Debbie Kirkley who is the joint company director of OSV explained that many people enjoy driving holidays and knowing which countries provide the best driving experience can really help when they are making their decisions. She went on to explain that many Brits choose to go to America when they think of driving holidays but that the index shows that there are lots of other places that could match their expectations. Even staying in the UK could be a great option as you do not have to go far and you can be assured of safe roads and reasonable pollution and congestion. She summed up by explaining that although India is at the bottom of the list, it is still higher than many other countries that did not make the top eight and therefore still worth considering.