As children head back to school after half-term, new research from Egg reveals the impact and heavy financial cost of the four million plus parents who regularly drive their children to and from school on the infamous 'school run'.

The findings also reveal that this costly exercise can also be fraught with danger as four million mums or dads fight to drop the kids off at school.

The research reveals that the annual cost of the school run is a staggering £1.66 billion a year. This equates to £401.6 per household that drives a child to and from school. The biggest expense is petrol which swallows up a staggering £1.32 billion a year.

This is followed by £233 million on parking and £90.4 million is spent each year on repairing damage to vehicles that has occurred during the morning or afternoon school run. Indeed, Egg estimates that around 331,000 vehicles suffer from school run accidents every year and that repairing these bumps are scrapes cost in the region of £273 per vehicle.

Andy Deller, director of Banking and Insurance at Egg said: "With the huge volumes of traffic during the morning and afternoon school runs it is perhaps no surprise that damage to parents vehicles as a result of bumps and scrapes is the third biggest annual cost of doing the school run."

"The key thing here appears to be to avoid the busiest times where possible, whilst making sure you are well covered in case you do get a knock.”