Which city's drivers pay most?

The research from December and January covers fuel prices, insurance, registration, parking fines, car theft, tolls and the number of available parking spaces.

Sydney fails miserably when it comes to parking fines and car parking costs. For an expired meter, a Sydneysider is fined $84, compared with $60 in Brisbane and Melbourne, $50 in Perth, $25 in Hobart and $20 in Darwin.

In regional Australia, the cheapest place is Devonport in Tasmania while South Australia had four cities in the top 10. Virgin Money Australia boss Matt Baxby said capital cities had cheaper fuel prices than regional area, but the provincial cities paid highly for all other criteria.

"The bigger the city the worse the result, which leaves poor old Sydney at the bottom of the table," he said. Sydney struck out with the highest parking fines ($84), parking costs ($35 for two hours), car thefts (866) and car insurance costs ($1895).

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It was also out in front on tolls at $2.02 per kilometre compared with Melbourne's 29c and Brisbane's 13c. However, no all other cities have toll roads. Hobart had the cheapest parking costs ($3 for two hours) and car insurance ($874) with the lowest car theft figures (66).

CAR FRIENDLY CAPITAL CITIES

1 Perth
2 Darwin
3 Hobart
4 Adelaide
5 Canberra
6 Melbourne
7 Brisbane
8 Sydney

CAR FRIENDLY REGIONAL CITIES

1 Devonport, Tas
2 Mount Gambier, SA
3 Burnie, Tas
4 Bunbury, WA
5 Port Augusta, SA
6 Gawler, SA
7 Port Lincoln, SA
8 Launceston, Tas
9 Bendigo, Vic
10 Albany, WA
11 Wodonga
12 Mandurah
13 Mildura
14 Toowoomba
15 Alice Springs
16 Geraldton
17 Ballarat
18 Rockingham
19 Townsville
20 Wagga Wagga
21 Cairns
22 Rockhampton
23 Fremantle
24 Albury
25 Coffs Harbour
26 Mackay
27 Geelong
28 Gosford
29 Wollongong
30 Newcastle