More than one motorist a week is being prosecuted for driving the wrong way on motorways in England and Wales, according to documents obtained by the Press Association.
Court records show 31 instances in the past 30 weeks of drivers charged by police with criminal offences for reversing, making U-turns, or driving against 70mph traffic on the fastest-moving roads in the country.
The figures follow a head-on collision on the M9 in Co Kildare last Sunday that killed five teenagers. Their BMW crashed while travelling the wrong way in a bid to get away from police, leaving three women and a seven-year-old boy in the oncoming vehicle badly injured in hospital.
Drivers reversing up slip roads
Drivers who miss their exit junction are risking head-on collisions, with those convicted typically ordered to pay hundreds of pounds in fines and court fees, and many facing driving bans.
In a recent Essex Police case, 38-year-old Ervis Hatellari from Woodford Green in north-east London was caught backing a Nissan Qashqai up the M11 on New Year's Eve 2025.
Sergeant Philip Roberts said he saw the car at around 10pm "in the hard shoulder and half in lane one of the M11, with reverse lights on, backing up to junction five." Hatellari, whose licence had been revoked and who was driving without insurance, was fined £660 and banned from driving for a year at Chelmsford Magistrates Court on July 27. He was also ordered to pay £120 in costs and a £264 victim surcharge.
In Staffordshire, 57-year-old van driver Daniel Udrescu was stopped at 10:30pm on April 29 while reversing up the M6 toll slip road in Cannock. He told officers he was "attempting to get to Glasgow and went the wrong way," and police noted he had buckled his seatbelt behind him rather than wearing it.
Almost 1,000 unconfirmed reports
Udrescu apologised for a "moment of poor judgment" and pleaded guilty to both offences at Birmingham Magistrates' Court last month. He received three penalty points, a £445 fine, £120 in costs, and a £178 victim surcharge.
A third driver, 32-year-old Manchester NHS worker Innocent Ayodele, was caught driving the wrong way up an M61 entry slip road to escape a traffic jam.
Pc Peter Weatherstone of Greater Manchester Police told Preston Magistrates' Court in May that he asked Ayodele "what he was playing at driving the wrong way."
"I could see another driver at the side of another vehicle whom he could have struck," Weatherstone said in his statement. "I pointed out the dangers of such behaviour, but the driver seemed totally blatant in his necessary to do this simply because he had finished work and wanted to get home."
Ayodele, who told the court he was trying to get home to his pregnant wife, already has nine penalty points on his licence and could face a driving ban when sentenced at a later date.
National Highways data from June revealed 947 incidents involving "oncoming vehicles" on motorways in England were logged in the 12 months to May 11, though the agency noted this figure could include unconfirmed reports.
"Confirmed incidents of wrong-way driving on motorways remain rare," National Highways said, adding that "every report is treated seriously and acted on quickly." The agency acknowledged the recorded cases could be the tip of an iceberg, with other incidents going completely undetected.
Steve Gooding, director of the motoring research charity RAC Foundation, said: "To think anyone could drive the wrong way onto a motorway heading into fast-moving traffic is truly the stuff of nightmares."
