UK petrol sales dropped by half a billion litres between April and June compared to the year before, according to figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The AA motoring organisation said this was a "huge drop", which came despite falling prices over the period.

In the first half of this year, 16.7bn litres of fuel was sold on forecourts in the UK.

When compared to 2008, fuel sales were down in the first six months of 2012 by over two billion litres, from just under 19bn litres.

AA President Edmund King said the fact new cars were more fuel-efficient could not account for "the crash in demand over the past three months and the past five years".

"A fall of 2.27bn litres in UK fuel sales over the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2008 has got to bring some sense of reality to the fuel market and the government," he said.

King blamed the fuel industry for "trying to squeeze more money out of shrinking customer demand" and called for greater price transparency "to ensure and show drivers that they are getting a fair deal at the pump".

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