Three wheel Reliant drivers are safest on the roads....

Three wheels are better than four! Reliant drivers are the safest on the road

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Last updated at 7:58 AM on 13th June 2011

Balancing on three wheels, it certainly looks precarious.

But it seems that the Reliant’s reputation for rolling over is undeserved.

Reliant Robin owners are actually Britain's safest drivers.

The car has come out on top of a study by comparison website Confused.com after statistics revealed less than one in a hundred Reliant drivers have been involved in a collision in the last five years.

Several careful drivers: Reliant Robins have come top of a survey that found the most and least crashed cars in the UK

That compares to an accident rate ten times higher for Lexus drivers who have the most crashes.

The data was uncovered when the website analysed seven million motor quotes requested in the last twelve months.

They then analysed 500,000 insurance claims which were made by drivers who had had an accident.

They then found that only 11 out of 1,174 Reliant owners who logged on had claimed for crash damage - just 0.9 per cent.

Confused.com's head of car insurance Gareth Kloet said: 'A Reliant Robin is a niche car now. People who own one look after them and know how to handle a three-wheeler.

'Most are members of specialist clubs devoted to the model and drive them only on special occasions.'

Reliant Owners Club treasurer Peter Huggins said: 'A lot of owners keep them as classic cars and take them to shows. You have to drive them more carefully than a normal car and be more alert.

'They aren't unstable in corners if you don't take stupid risks or do what Jeremy Clarkson did and roll it over on a sharp bend.

MOST CRASHED

LEXUS                                              10.5% 

HONDA                                                9.8% 

CHRYSLER                                        9.6% 

TOYOTA                                               9.4% 

MAZDA                                                 9.0% 

LEAST CRASHED

RELIANT                                              0.9%

LAMBORGHINI                                   1.1%

FERRARI                                             1.1% 

MORRIS                                               1.5% 

TRIUMPH                                            2.0%

These two tables show the makes of car with the percentage being the rate of claims made

'I've had two over the last 17 years and haven't had a single accident. The only times they've been damaged was when some idiots turned them over onto their roofs when parked outside the house.

'You get quite a few jokes about them but it is water off a duck's back.

'You also get a lot of road rage from drivers when you're tootling along at the speed of a caravan holding up the traffic like an old time Sunday driver.'

The analysis also threw up some other surprises with high-powered Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins and Bentleys among the ten makes with the fewest accident claims.

At the other end of the scale, Lexus was joined by Honda, Chrysler, Toyota and Mazda.

'There is a big difference between the high and low rates of accident claims,' said Kloet.

'Car accidents are often caused by human error or just bad fortune. Most happen within a mile-and-a-half of your home.

'It doesn't appear that some models are more dangerous than others.

'But some cars tend to be used at weekends when people have fewer accidents.'

Most famous owner: Only Fools and Horses' Del Trotter was the proud driver of a 1972 version of the car

Honda UK general manager for corporate affairs Paul Ormond insisted that the figures do not indicate that Honda cars are less safe than other makes or that their drivers are more careless.

And a Lexus spokesman added: 'A Lexus is not a high risk car as far as insurance ratings are concerned.

'As the data is based on customer profiles filled in on-line, I can only assume that Lexus drivers are more honest.'

Reliant three-wheelers were initially adapted motorcycle trikes with a van style body first produced in 1935.

The AA and the Post Office ran fleets of the three-wheelers and there are now nearly 1,000 enthusiasts around the world belonging to the Reliant Owners Club.

The car was made famous by the comedy series Only Fools and Horses, where Del Trotter was the proud owner of a yellow model.

Del Boy's Reliant was a 1972 Regal model emblazoned with the logo "Trotters Independent Trading Co. New York, Paris, Peckham."

It sold at a Coys of Kensington car auction in London for £44,227 four years ago - more than four times the price of the last one to roll off the production line in Staffordshire in February 2001.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002761/Reliant-Robin-drivers-safest-road.html#ixzz1P9u199wn