Skip to main content

Eastern Europe has the most noxious drivers in the continent

The Czech Republic has the highest levels of toxic emissions caused by drivers, in a study of 25 European countries conducted by The Eco Experts. It found that Poland, Estonia, Croatia and Slovakia ranked in the top five counties for noxious drivers, making Eastern Europe the most toxic region in the continent. Czech drivers ranked the highest for using old and poor quality cars that are just over 14 years old. Results also showed that the number of cars powered by sustainable fuel alternatives is at 0.7
March 29, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
The Czech Republic has the highest levels of toxic emissions caused by drivers, in a study of 25 European countries conducted by The Eco Experts. It found that Poland, Estonia, Croatia and Slovakia ranked in the top five counties for noxious drivers, making Eastern Europe the most toxic region in the continent.


Czech drivers ranked the highest for using old and poor quality cars that are just over 14 years old. Results also showed that the number of cars powered by sustainable fuel alternatives is at 0.7%, which is nearly 22 times less than Poland.

Poland came second for having the most toxic drivers in Europe. However, the inquiry also revealed that the country has the highest proportion of alternative fuel vehicles at 15%. These figures, according to The Eco Experts, suggests that the country’s efforts to combat its high air pollution levels are heavily dependent on the roll out of sustainably powered vehicles.

The initiative cross-referenced data for the percentage of alternative fuel cars, average vehicle age, the number of vehicles per 1,000 people and ambient air pollution. Individual rankings were then combined to give an overall impression of the countries that have the most toxic motorists.

Fran Whittaker-Wood of The Eco Experts said: “Road transport is one of the biggest sources of air pollution and although our research shows that poor quality vehicles is the biggest contributing factor to toxic driving emissions, the reality is that most people can’t afford to replace their cars with sustainable alternatives because they are just too expensive. If governments are serious about cutting driver pollution levels then more needs to be done to make these cars affordable to everyone.”

Sweden ranked in first place overall for having Europe’s greenest motorists. Additional findings are available %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external here false https://blog.theecoexperts.co.uk/most-toxic-drivers-europe false false%>.

Related Content

  • Call for Contributions still open, ITS World Congress 2018
    December 11, 2017
    The Call for Contributions are still open for the ITS World Congress 2018, in Copenhagen. Through ITS, it aims to find answers to climate, air pollution, urbanization, congestion, and traffic safety through its main theme Quality of Life. The deadline for the submission of papers is 15 December 2017. Next year’s event is expected to attract over 10,000 visitors, 4,000 delegates and 400 exhibitors and will be held in the Bella Center from 12-21 September 2018. More information in the Call for Contribution
  • Europe’s number one leading Mobility as a Service conference says the future of transport lies in delivering change
    January 19, 2018
    First hand reports on the rapid progress being made, as well as the obstacles being faced, by Mobility as a Service projects across Europe dominate the agenda of the second “MaaS Market Concept to Delivery” conference taking place in London next month. Speakers will cover the political and regulatory implications, open data, technology and common standards, demand responsive transport and future business models. This is Europe’s number one leading MaaS event and it includes presentations from Port
  • ITS America concerned over use of 5GHz spectrum band
    February 28, 2013
    ITS America has raised con­cerns with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the potential use of the 5GHz band spec­trum by unlicensed national information infrastructure devices. It wants to protect the 5.9GHz band for dedicated short-range communications (DSRC)-based systems. These crucially underpin the development of connected vehicle (CV) technologies which could help slash the US’ annual tally of six million road traffic accidents and over 30,000 deaths. Within the US Department of Trans
  • Connected cones make for safer sites
    May 31, 2013
    David Crawford welcomes new lives for old road safety products. Traffic cones and barrels have traditionally been on the bottom shelf of the road construction and maintenance industry, typically forming visible soft safety barriers for temporary works at a lower cost than concrete alternatives. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, they are fast gaining new roles as instrumented components in advanced construction safety arrays. The EC-sponsored €1 million (US$1.31 million) Safelane collaborative innovati