Where in the UK has the worst Christmas traffic?

1. Always keep an emergency kit in your boot

While preparing for congestion might seem like a bad omen, it’s crucial to ensure your safety during winter travels. Everything from long traffic jams to diversions from accidents or breaking down can be agonising in the winter - especially when you’re travelling for the festivities. 

Keeping an emergency kit for drivers, or keeping your own personalised bag of emergency supplies will give you peace of mind. Just a couple of useful things you can keep in your emergency kit include: 

• A power bank for your phone 
• Warning triangle in case of breakdowns
• Non-perishable food 
• Water 
• Torches 
• Thermal blanket or clothing 
• High vis vest 

2. Make your car visible and easy to see in all conditions

Congestion means you might be at a standstill for an unknown amount of time. While it may be easy for you to see the drivers directly in front of you when you’ve been in the congestion for a while, for those further behind, you might not be as visible. 

As such, it’s crucial to ensure that your car remains visible at all times. If you’re at the back of the queue, popping your hazards on to warn drivers of what’s coming up can be helpful.

It’s also important to not wholly rely on your automatic headlights, as these systems might not always activate when visibility is reduced, such as during heavy rain, fog, snow, and other elements.

3. Check your tyres

There’s always a cause for congestion, whether that’s a road closure or a skidded car. Whatever the reason, you want to make sure you’re not the cause of it. A vital part of winter driving preparation is ensuring that our tyres are in a suitable condition. Before setting off, you should check your tyres for cuts, bulges, or any other damage that could cause a problem down the road. 

While the legal limit for tyre tread in the UK is 1.6mm, it's recommended to change your tyres once they reach around 3mm. This is especially important to check when travelling in the unpredictable Scottish winter as any extra tread depth will help to better disperse any snow or water. 

4. Get to know your car’s brakes

Before setting off this winter, refamiliarise yourself with your car’s braking system. If you know the sensitivity or heaviness of how your car’s brakes operate, you will have a much better reaction time when it comes to stopping in any unforeseen congestion. 

Check out our blog on what to do if your brakes fail this winter. 

5. Fill up, charge up 

It may be tempting to avoid a busy petrol station in a bid to ‘beat’ the traffic, but congestion in winter can be unpredictable, so try to fill up the day before you’re set to travel. Not only will this save you time on your travel day, but it also reduces your risk of running out of fuel if you do hit traffic. 

If you’re an electric car driver, it’s vital to plan accordingly and ensure that you're accounting for charging times within your trip. Extreme weather (both hot and cold) can cause EV charger ranges to decrease by around 10% to 30%, so it’s important to account for this when planning. 

Always aim to refill well before your fuel warning light comes on in the winter. For those with EVs, charge your car overnight before you set off to ensure there’s plenty of range for your winter road trip. As always, plan ahead to account for extra fuel stops or charges on your route just in case they’re necessary. 

Running out of fuel or charge could result in a minimum of a £100 fine and three penalty points for obstructing the road in an avoidable breakdown.

Methodology

To uncover their findings, Dick Lovett scraped and analysed data from the Department for Transport’s ‘Road Traffic Statistics’, looking at traffic increases between 2021 and 2023.