Drivers of Ford cars in the South East are most likely to throw litter from their vehicles.

This is a conclusion from a survey carried out by charity Keep Britain Tidy, which has asked Ford to include car bins in new model specifications and is campaigning to get car littering classified as a motoring offence, worth one point on a licence.

The survey was compiled from 6000 online reports of car littering filed by consumers. From these it emerged that the most likely items to be thrown from cars were, in descending order, cigarette butts, fast food packaging, sweet wrappers, metal drink cans and plastic drink bottles. The most likely places for the offence to be committed were the South East and the North West, followed by London, Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Midlands. The most reported makes of cars whose drivers were seen littering were Ford, BMW, Citroen, Audi and Honda.

Ford have commented that their cars are more common on the roads than any other brands so will always top this kind of survey.

More than 700,000 bags of litter are collected from England’s roads every year, at huge public cost, and 81% of the population support stiffer penalties, say the charity.