Breakdown cover company and road safety charity, GEM Motoring Assist this month rounds up some interesting figures in a quirky fact file, ‘Motoring by numbers’. If you don’t know what the perfect driving song is, or just how tiny the world’s smallest car is, you can find out here!
GEM fact file: motoring by numbers
1 shilling: the fine handed to a Mr Walter Arnold for driving at 8mph in a 2mph zone. This is widely believed to be the very first speeding ticket
29.1 pence: the average price of a litre of four star petrol in 1980
47: the percentage of tax within the cost of a litre of fuel in 1980
£3,721.51: the average cost of a car theft claim in 2012. The most stolen car in the UK last year was the Land Rover Defender
£2 billion: the estimated additional cost to the UK’s economy if our roads were not gritted during wintry conditions
1868: the year that traffic lights were first installed in London (outside the Houses of Parliament)
104.14cm: the height of the world’s smallest roadworthy car, the ‘Wind-Up’, designed in the UK by Perry Watkins
81”: the length of the world’s shortest road, Ebenezer Place in Scotland
3380 metres: the height of Europe’s highest road, passing through Veleta in Spain
24.51km: the length of the world’s longest road tunnel, the Laerdal in Norway
29,800 miles: the length of the world’s longest road network, the Pan American Highway
70 beats per minute: the ideal rate for a ‘safe driving song’. This mimics the human heartbeat. Examples include Come Away With Me by Norah Jones, The Scientist by Coldplay, and Tiny Dancer by Elton John
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