The number of reports of vehicles being driven the wrong way on England’s motorways rose by 13% in a year, an investigation has found.

Sky News reports National Highways figures show 872 incidents involving “oncoming vehicles” were reported in the year to 19 June.

That is up from 770 during the previous 12 months, and represents an average of 16 per week.

The data, released in response to a Freedom of Information request, relates to unconfirmed reports of wrong-way driving received by National Highways’ regional operations centres.

Sheena Hague, National Highways director of road safety, told Sky News: “Safety is our top priority and our traffic officers are called out to hundreds of thousands of incidents each year, including collisions, breakdowns and debris.

“Thankfully the number of reports of oncoming vehicles is low, however we treat them seriously by setting signals to warn and inform drivers for every report of a vehicle driving the wrong way on our motorways.”

(Picture – Yay Images)