Car driving on the reverse in Britain

The decline of driving in Britain may have reached a tipping point. At least that's the idea behind the theory of 'peak car'. Something weird is happening," says Phil Goodwin, professor of transport policy at the University of the West of England. "Car use in Britain is on the decline, but no one is exactly sure why." Goodwin says we have reached "peak car". If he is right, this has important implications for how we design our towns and cities, and where public money gets allocated. Goodwin has been building his argument for peak car in a series of articles in Local Transport Today. His evidence includes that fewer young people are learning to drive. Between 1992 and 2007, the number of 17- to 20-year-olds who held licences fell from 48 per cent to 38 per cent, and for 21- to 29-year-olds, the number fell from 75 per cent to 66 per cent. Also, there has been a decline in private transport's share of trips from 50 per cent in 1993 to 41 per cent in 2008. And, according to Lynn Sloman, director of Transport for Quality of Life, between 2004 and 2008, car trips per person went down by 9 per cent. Of course, this doesn't amount to incontrovertible evidence of the beginning of the end for cars but it would be foolish not to have this debate now. Velo Mondial sees more evidence that the Holy Cow is on the way out. Read on in The Inependant.