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Motoring news

Car still most-used mode of transport

28/08/2009

The average Briton travels 7,100 miles in a year, according to Government figures.

And although rail and bus travel has increased over the last decade, trips by car still account for 63% of all journeys made - amounting to 80% of the distance travelled.

The figures are contained within the 2008 National Travel Survey, published yesterday by the Department for Transport. The annual report, which aims to identify long-term trends in travel within the UK, contains information gathered from travel diaries kept by 8,100 households.

The report reveals that the average distance people travel each year has increased by more than 50% since the early 1970s, chiefly because each trip they take is longer. However, the amount of time spent travelling - roughly an hour each day - has increased only slightly over the same period.

Car ownership has become more widespread, with the proportion of households without access to a car falling from 38% in 1985/6 to remain at 25% for the last three years.

And while the proportion of men with a driving licence remains fairly constant at around 81%, the proportion of women able to drive has risen from roughly half in the early 1990s, to 65% in 2008.

Research conducted for the Admiral Survey of British Motorists, also published yesterday, suggests that women require more attempts to pass their driving test than men do, and that women drivers are less confident than men that they would pass a test if required to re-sit one today.

However, men confessed to breaking more rules of the road, and were much more likely than women to have been banned from driving: 5% said that they had, compared to just 1% of women.