Nissan has carried out a survey of European drivers to find out who crashes the most, and the results may not be a surprise.

By a fair margin, it seems Italians are the worst when it comes to crashing.  Is anyone surprised?  And did anyone expect the UK to be the best?

In fairness to the rest of Europe, this was not an especially comprehensive survey.  Only those countries above were polled, and the sample size was UK 1819, Germany 1796, France 1810, Italy 1913 and Spain 1839 via an online survey between between 2 – 16 February. 

The survey also doesn’t appear to differentiate between car damage (minor bingles) and actual injury or fatalities, and it was online so it was voluntary…and it could be the British just don’t like to admit mistakes!

Nissan said that “In four out of five of the nations surveyed, reversing proved the most challenging manoeuvre, with the tricky task accounting for 45% of all parking bumps; in Italy a staggering 51% of bumps were caused while in reverse.”  This is no surprise, as throughout the world by far the most common accident is reversing.  Nose to tail is typically the second most common incident.

Nissan commissioned the survey as part of its parking technology – Around View Monitor and Moving Object Detection.

So where do you reckon Aussies would fit in the table?  I’d say the best of all, on the basis we leave huge gaps between vehicles when we parallel park so it’s really hard to hit anything, and we have massive carpark spaces and wide roads in general.  I mean, look at this:

That is frankly ridiculous amount of wasted space between cars and all Australians should be embarrassed.

Leave that sort of gap in any European city and you’d find a Smartcar jammed in the gap and a rude note on your windscreen.  Yes, the law in Australia says there should be a pointlessly large one-metre gap in front of and behind the car, but even so this is just being sloppy. 

This is how you park:

(photo courtesy Stephen Harrison)

And from our Fiat 500 test:

 Or, if you’re in the USA, this is how you park:

I think the Americans win this round!

(photo courtesy Barlow Adventures)

Or maybe not…the title image is of the world record for parking in a tight space, albeit with a rather unconventional technique!

Check our our article on automatic parking, or take a look at the world’s worst parkers.