Euro 2008 begins this weekend but with no home nations qualifying this year, research by online car insurance expert elephant.co.uk has revealed that this could also be bad news for drivers as well as football fans.
elephant.co.uk looked at its claims data from more than 1.5 million customers and found that in the previous two European Championships, every day England played there was an average 7% drop in the number of road accidents.
In fact, on the day England beat Switzerland 3-0 in Euro 2004 there was a 22% decrease in accidents.
elephant.co.uk managing director, Brian Martin said, "In the past we have seen that less people contact us for car insurance when there's a big football tournament on, so we thought it would be interesting to see if the roads were also quieter and if people had less accidents as well.
"We saw a definite decrease in accidents on the day of all the England matches and we can only guess that this is because the nation is leaving their cars at home to enjoy the games. But this year, with no home nations reaching the Euro 2008 finals, not only are UK fans missing out on their team's participation, they could also be missing this respite on the roads."
Issue date: 04-06-08 |
