Rising Vehicle Ownership Puts The Squeeze On Roads

IF YOU’RE starting to think that the roads are getting crowded, you’re not wrong. The latest data shows that the number of licensed vehicles on the roads has passed the 35 million mark for the first time.

Government figures show that by the end of 2013 there were 35.03 million licensed vehicles in Britain. This included 29.14 million cars, 3.35 million light goods vehicles, and nearly 1.22 million motorcycles.

The end-of-2013 total compares with 34.52 million vehicles at the end of 2012. The annual totals have risen steadily over the last 20 years, with there being only 25.23 million licensed vehicles in 1994.

The figures for 2013 show that more than a quarter of England's 24.68 million cars are in London (2.54 million) and the south east (4.77 million), with the next-biggest concentration in the East of England (3.1 million).

By region, the north east of England has the fewest licensed cars - 1.05 million. The 2013 car total for Scotland was 2.31 million and for Wales it was 1.46 million.

Predictably, with access to the biggest range of public transport in the country and with the congestion charge in place, Londoners recorded the lowest number of cars per head of population according to mid-2012 population estimates.

Londoners had only 306.8 cars per 1,000 people, while the highest ratio was in south west England (538.0 cars per 1,000 people).

Commenting on the data, AA president Edmund King said: "The increase in licensed vehicles on our roads is a reflection of a growing economy as this is indicated by the rapid growth in 'white vans' to service our economy.

"The increase probably also reflects the fact that drivers are living longer and are not hanging up their keys as soon as their predecessors did.

"Our ageing population continuing to drive seems to have out-weighed the slowdown in the number of younger people learning to drive.

"The message for our highway authorities is that we need to speed up our investment in roads to remove the bottlenecks to ensure these vehicles don't get stuck in the slow lane."

By Press Association reporters