The British Automobile Association and European motoring agencies conducted a safety investigation of 34 ferries throughout Europe and found that British car ferries, which had poor safety records four years ago, are now among the safest in Europe. Ferries around Greece and the eastern Mediterranean were the worst. Common problems of those that did poorly in the study were difficulty of accessing fire-fighting equipment and poor performance of crews in emergency drills. All eight British vessels graded in the study were found to be good or very good. The vessel with the highest rating was the Italian-operated Excelsior.