Is your star sign to blame for your penalty points?

If you were born in October or November today might be as good a day as any to start paying extra special care when getting behind the steering wheel.

A new survey has, well, revealed that you’re more likely feel the bitter sting of penalty points if you’re a Scorpio.

The normally serious folk at the AA have carried out what they describe as an “extensive analysis” of more than 110,000 motor insurance customers and their – wait for it now – car signs (you’re welcome) and found that people born between October 23rd and November 21st are most likely to attract penalty points.

Scorpios are said – by people who believe such nonsense – to be the most passionate of all Zodiac signs and words such as "determined" and "competitive" are often used when describing them. They are also said to be "jealous", "obsessive", "suspicious" and "unyielding" – not traits you'd normally look for in a nice steady driver.

Spontaneity and adventurousness are hardly bad personality traits, but maybe not when barrelling along the M7 at 140km/hr, which might explain why Sagittarians were catapulted into second place in the AA’s list.

It could have been much worse for anyone born under Cancer. On the surface it’s a pretty shocking driving sign. Astrologers will tell you such folk are “unpredictable”, “indecisive”, “temperamental” and “insecure” – all of which are terrible things for a driver to be.

Despite all these appalling traits, Cancerians only managed to finish third in the AA’s penalty point league, just ahead of Leos.

At the other end of the scale, Taureans are least likely to attract penalty points, something which is probably down to them being perfectionists who can be relied on. Taureans are also supposed to be sensual, although hopefully not while driving to borrow a phrase beloved of the AA Roadwatch people.

Librans are the next least likely to get points followed by those born under Aries.

But is our behaviour behind the wheel determined by our alignment with the planets, or is it a sheer coincidence? (spoiler alert, it’s a complete coincidence).

Conor Faughnan, the AA's director of consumer affairs and an Aquarian who's smack bang in the middle of the table in case you were wondering, said a motorist's date of birth does come into play when calculating their motor insurance premium, but their star sign does not.

“It has no part to play in magnetising penalty points, though it was a fun exercise and caused quite a stir in the office,” he said.

“We look at lots of serious things here in the AA, but we’re not above a little light-hearted fun as well. So, we decided to have a look at which star sign is most likely to attract two or three penalty points.

“To be fair, the differences were small and are not significant enough statistically to attract insurance loadings.”