The most dangerous time to be on Britain's roads this year is Saturday July 22 at 2pm, according to new research.

'Black Saturday' occurs because of a perfect storm of factors including peak traffic volumes in July, the start of the children's school holidays and the great summer getaway all happening at the same time.

Department for Transport figures show more vehicle collisions occur in the summer months of July and August, than any other time of the year.

Despite the fact that winter months generally bring more difficult driving conditions like icy roads and poor visibility, there are 27.5% more road incidents in the summer - 33,312 in July and August, compared with the winter 26,122 (January and February).

The most dangerous day on the roads has been identified by VisionTrack, using official Department of Transport data and its own insurance reports showing peak times for collisions in previous years.

VisionTrack managing director Simon Marsh said: “We are asking motorists to take extra special care when starting out on their summer holidays. The most common cause of road collisions is not poor road conditions or your car, it’s bad driving.

“It will be first day of the summer holidays for many families and there will be extremely large numbers of motorists taking to the roads. Cars will be packed full of children and luggage, which means that drivers will be more stressed and distracted than usual, as they make their way to airports and holiday destinations.

"As a result this day is expected to have the highest number of incidents for the whole of the year."