How many UK drivers put the wrong fuel in each year?
About 150,000 UK drivers a year put the wrong fuel in — one every three and a half minutes — but that is an industry estimate first published in November 2007, when Fleet News reported it at the launch of AA Fuel Assist, and it has been repeated and re-attributed ever since.
We have not found a more recent UK-wide count: breakdown providers publish only their own call-out numbers. Treat 150,000 as an order of magnitude, not a current figure.
Wrong fuel each year: the figure
| Value | 150,000 |
|---|---|
| Unit | misfuels per year (estimate) |
| Period | estimate first published 2007 |
| Geography | United Kingdom |
| Source | Fleet News, 8 November 2007 — launch of AA Fuel Assist |
| Last checked | 3 October 2026 |
How the figure was arrived at
Quoted as an estimate in the Fleet News report of the AA Fuel Assist launch on 8 November 2007, which gives no method. The figure, and its "every three and a half minutes" gloss — 150,000 a year is one every 3.5 minutes — has since been credited to the AA, the RAC and insurers.
How far to trust it
Nearly twenty years old, with no published method. The share of diesel cars has risen and fallen since, so the true current number could be quite different. Cite it as a 2007 estimate, not as this year's count.
Source
Fleet News, 8 November 2007 — launch of AA Fuel Assist.
Cite this
Misfuel Doctor (2026). How many UK drivers put the wrong fuel in each year? (v2026.10). https://mis-fueldoctor.co.uk/facts/wrong-fuel-each-year-uk/. CC BY 4.0.
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: reuse it, including commercially, with credit. See the licence page.