If you are driving home for Christmas this year, you’ll want to make sure that you feel safe. So which are the major roads that you should try and avoid?

Wessex Fleet have crunched the data to find the the most dangerous roads in the UK at Christmas time.

They sent Freedom of Information requests to police forces around the UK. These asked for data on which roads have had the most car crashes in the month of December over the last 5 years (2016-2020). Here are the results.

A470 in South Wales Named as the Most Dangerous Road at Christmas

When driving through South Wales this Christmas, it might be a wise idea to try and avoid the A470 if at all possible. This road has previously been named ‘Britain’s favourite road’. However, statistically it is the worst for crashes in the month of December.

Also known as the Cardiff to Glan Conwy Trunk Road, the road is the longest in Wales. It goes right through the middle of the country from Cardiff on the south coast to Llandudno on the north coast. A stretch of 186 miles, there have been 216 car accidents in the month of December since 2016 according to South Wales Police, the most out of all roads on our list.

It’s not the only road from South Wales to feature heavily in our list either, as Newport Road in Cardiff is also up there with 149 accidents in December. A 4.7 mile stretch from the centre of Cardiff heading towards Newport, it often gets busy and had the most prolific speed camera in Britain back in 2014. With 1600 vehicles passing through every day, it’s clear to see why accidents happen in the cold winter months.

The A4232 going through Cardiff also features high on the list, with 147 December accidents in the last 5 years.

Kent is the Most Dangerous Area Overall at Christmas

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When it comes to an overall landscape, it was Kent that ended up far and away the most dangerous area to drive in during the month of December, according to the stats. There have been 4198 accidents on Kent’s roads over Christmas in the last 5 years, way ahead of second-placed Sussex with 3065.

South Wales had the most dangerous singular road on our list, but as an overall area, it only places in third with 2887 incidents.  Scotland may have a larger land area than the rest on the list, but they only placed in fourth with 2505 overall road accidents throughout the last five Decembers. Rounding out the top five is Wiltshire, the home of Wessex Fleet, with an overall December incident total of 1936, a large amount being thanks to the infamous A303 that passes Stonehenge.

City of London and Dyfed-Powys have the Least Incidents over Christmas

Bottom of the list was the relatively small area that covers the City of London, with 137 incidents in the last five years. Rounding out the bottom three were two Welsh areas, which is interesting considering that South Wales was in the top three. Dyfed-Powys, covering 3,360 square miles of central Wales, only had 244 incidents, while Gwent in the South East of the country had 258 accidents.

Cleveland in the North East of England, featuring the likes of Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, also had a relatively low number of incidents with 270. There was then a jump up to the next lowest, which was Dorset at 580 incidents.