The most common driving offences by profession
Is there a correlation between your job and your driving record?
A wide range of variables go into the calculation for a car insurance premium, including your location and the make and model of your car, your occupation and your driving record.
But could there be a correlation between those latter two variables? Are motorists with certain professions more likely to have certain motoring offences on their driving records?
Data from Admiral Insurance suggests that might be the case.
Admiral has analysed the motoring offences data for its customer base, discovering that there seem to be some professions who are clearly more likely to commit certain offences.
For example, locksmiths were the most likely to have a speeding conviction in 2018, according to Admiral’s figures, followed by offshore rig workers and creative directors.
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Some of this could be coincidence, of course; locksmiths did not appear in the top ten in 2017, for example.
However, rig workers made it into the top ten each time, and a number of other lines of work made it into the top ten for speeding convictions both years too: professional footballers, company directors and construction engineers, for instance.
Some of these findings have an element of logic to them, of course. Footballers and company directors are probably more likely to be in a position to afford flashy, high-performance cars than an average employee, for instance, and since these vehicles are capable of much higher speeds motorists driving these high-performance cars are more likely to be caught speeding.
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Indeed, the three car models in which speeding offences are most commonly committed include two Mercedes motors and the Porsche Panamera, according to Admiral’s findings, while two kinds of Aston Martin and two models of BMW were also in the top ten.
Admiral’s analysis revealed that insurance clerks were the least likely workers to have received speeding convictions, with loss adjusters the tenth least. Perhaps those two professions are more aware than most of the insurance implications of speeding.
Sabine Williams, Head of Motor at Admiral Insurance, explained: “Motoring convictions carry a fine as well as points on the licence, and in addition will lead to higher insurance premiums.
"Statistics show that those who have convictions or penalty points are more likely to be involved in an accident than those who have not, and also make higher value claims than others."
Differences between professions were not the only correlation Admiral found in its analysis, though. The data also revealed a clear correlation between gender and motoring offences, with men responsible for 68 per cent of speeding violations, 75 per cent of illegal phone use and 60 per cent of traffic signal offences.
A geographic correlation was identified too, with the top five locations for traffic signal offences all located in Scotland, while four of the five worst speeding hotspots were in Yorkshire.
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