PAYING too much for your car insurance? Then move a hundred yards away to a different postcode.

That’s the advice being given after research revealed the cost of insuring the same car in Huddersfield can more than double depending on where you live.

The Examiner did a number of online quotes for a married 40-year-old male school teacher with a clean licence. The imaginary driver had three years no claims bonus and owned a five-year-old Ford Focus 1.6 run on petrol.

And the quotes varied by more than £550 across eight different HD postcodes.

The most expensive area was the HD1 postcode where motorists on Swan Lane, Lockwood must pay £1,021 to insure the modest hatchback.

However, less than 100 yards away on Thornfield Road, which has an HD4 postcode, a quote for the same car is almost £400 cheaper at £633.

Other expensive areas are Coule Royd, Rawthorpe (£978), Ridding Road, Deighton (£916) and Fernside Avenue, Almondbury (£734).

The cheapest quotes in the region were at North Road, Kirkburton (£450), Huddersfield Road, Holmfirth (£470) and Olney Street, Slaithwaite (£509).

Within Huddersfield, Lindley’s Daisy Lea Lane was cheapest at £569.

Malcolm Tarling from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) defended the large variations.

Mr Tarling said while some insurance premiums were excessively high the levels of uninsured drivers were falling.

His comments come the day after Dewsbury woman Jane Pratt hit out at the legal system after the uninsured driver that hit her was not banned from driving.

Mrs Pratt spent eight days in hospital and was left with multiple injuries including fractures to her skull, pelvis and ankle when she was run over on a zebra crossing on Bradford Road last December.

Batley man Afzal Ebrahim Shaikh, was ordered to pay a £1,000 fine and given eight penalty points for committing the offence.

Mr Tarling said: “Insurers try to be fair, what they do is take into account various factors and where you live can be important.

“Differences within the same postcode can often reflect insurers’ own experiences of claims.

“About 4% of the driving population are uninsured. Uninsured drivers are much more likely to cause an accident and the cost of those accidents pushes premiums up by £30 a year for law abiding motorists.

“Clearly the seriousness of the offence should be reflected in the penalty but in some cases the fine is far less than the cost of the insurance and that’s a concern for us.

“The police have got greater powers now thanks to a new law that makes it an offence to own a car without insurance and not just driving without insurance.

“This has led to a fall from five to four percent of drivers who are not covered.”

Meanwhile, Huddersfield’s fledgling motorists need a lottery win if they are to drive legally.

The Examiner did a quote for a 17-year-old male Ford Focus driver living in Lockwood.

It produced a best price of £22,854.

The annual premium is almost half the price of several two bedroom homes on the market in the area.

Brighouse woman Carol Whittingham, who launched road safety charities SCARD (Support and Care After Road Death and Injury) and CADD (Campaign Against Drink Driving) said the ludicrous quote was a symptom of the poor driving standards of younger people.

Carol, who lost her son in a road accident in 2002, said: “This reflects the amount of accidents young people cause. One in three road deaths are caused by somebody between the ages of 17 and 25.

“They think they’re invincible and many seem quite happy to have a drink and get behind the wheel.

“Eight people a day die on our roads and nobody seems to want to play any part in getting road deaths down.

“It’s a huge problem, there’s not one thing that will make it better.

“It’s going to take the insurance industry, the judiciary and the Government all working together to solve it.”