Rising petrol prices, fines and expensive motor insurance reinforce the fact that it has never been more expensive to drive. British motorists could end up paying out almost £400,000 on motoring during their lifetime – and this does not even include the cost of buying their cars, according to Mark Nancarrow, Egg’s Chief Operating Officer.

As another new car registration is introduced this month, new research by Egg highlights just how significant a financial commitment buying a car now is, with UK motorists collectively forking out over £54 billion a year just keeping their vehicles on the road – that’s equal to £2,156 per car per year.

This annual figure, if inflated over the lifetime of a UK driving licence, becomes an even more dramatic £386,000.

To put this figure into perspective, driving and maintaining a car over your lifetime costs almost 20% more than buying an average UK property outright over a traditional mortgage term – leaving enough change to buy a luxury sports car!

With the recent hikes in fuel prices, UK motorists now spend on average £898 each year on petrol, making it the single largest cost of motoring. However hot on the heels of fuel is motor insurance which, at £759 per vehicle, now accounts for over a third of the UK’s annual motoring bill.

Mark Nancarrow, Egg’s Chief Operating Officer commented, “As the expense of owning and maintaining a car continues to climb, it is critical that motorists try to drive these costs down wherever possible. Reducing your motor insurance premium by as little as £50 would cover the cost of the average MOT – wiping £1.25 billion off the nation’s collective annual motoring burden!”

What is even more surprising, perhaps, is how this expenditure compares to other household costs. Motoring now costs the nation almost as much annually as food and drink – in fact, we only spend £64 a year more on food and drink than we do on our cars (£2,220). Indeed as a nation we spend considerably less on clothes and shoes (£1,160), household goods (£1,570) and alcohol and cigarettes (£593) than we do on our cars.