INTERESTING FACTS 1. CARS AND PEOPLE
Did you know that there are:
33.6 million people with driving licences in the UK?
31.7 million cars
4.1 million vans
35.8 million cars and vans in total.
So that means that everyone could be driving at the same time. What a traffic jam that would be!
But hey, don’t worry – these vehicles are not really used that much.
In fact 96% of the time the cars and vans are parked somewhere. They are only actually being driven for 4% of the time. This is equivalent to 58 minutes per day and they travel only about 21 miles per day on average.
80% of the time they are parked at someone’s home and 16% they are parked either at an employer’s premises or in other private or public car parks.
Overnight, however, 9% of cars are kept in a garage, 63% on on people’s drives, 25% are parked on the road and 2% in public car parks.
The problem is with the 25% of vehicles ( 9 million ) that get parked on the road.
As car ownership grows and grows the number of cars parked on the roads goes up and up. People then ask for more and more on street parking and more and more verges, amenity greens, public open space and land generally to be tarmaced over and more and more roadside trees to be cut down to increase the parking space available.
We should bear in mind that we have a right to pass and repass, or even stop, on Queen’s highway but have no right to park a vehicle there. This may be permitted under various circumstances, and the law now views the highway as a public area, but parking is still not a “right”.
Unfortunately the reality of local government finance means that more public money spent on parking provision means some has to be diverted away from other council activities such as adult care, family centres or or public health.
We really cannot go on providing more and more car parking unless it is accompanied by a shift to public transport – and this includes taxis.
Perhaps we should subsidise buses and taxis to help reduce car ownership and car use?
County Councillor for Tring & the Villages, Nick Hollinghurst says, “Without doubt cars have brought about huge increase in personal freedom at a basic level. They’ve allowed families to go to and enjoy places and facilities that would have been difficult or impossible to visit before. But perhaps we should use them a bit less – especially for commuting. Or perhaps we should use them in different ways. And when you realise that, based on those figures above (from the RAC), owning a private car may be a valued convenience, but it’s pretty poor economics, then “