With 1 car to 2.21 people we lag behind in EU table

Ireland's roads may seem congested, but we still lag behind the European Union average for vehicles per head of population. We have one vehicle for every 2.21 people - below the EU average of one for every 2 people.

The highest car density in the EU is in Luxembourg which has one vehicle for every 1.5 people. Italy (with one vehicle to every 1.7 people), Germany (one to 1.8) and Austria (one to 1.9) all have more cars per population than Ireland.

The figures, from the Department of the Environment's vehicle registration unit, show that 1,769,700 vehicles were licenced in Ireland at the end of 2001 - of these 1,384,700 were cars and 32,900 motorcycles. The rest were either goods vehicles or agricultural tractors.

Of the car fleet, 87 per cent were petrol, while 89 per cent were over four years of age.

Britain has one vehicle for every 2.1 people, with a total of 28.6 million cars in use and 3.5 commercial vehicles.

Germany, with nearly 48 million cars and commercial vehicles, had most vehicles in Europe. The EU state with the lowest number of cars per population was Greece with one car for every 3.1 people.

Overall in Europe, Albania, with one vehicle for every 40.3 people, had the fewest cars.

For the whole of Europe, including the EU countries, there were 278 million vehicles in use in 2001 - an average of one to every 3.1 people.

Elsewhere, among the major countries Canada had a ration of one to 1.8, Australia one to 1.9 and the US one to 2 people.

Brunei, whose sultan is regarded as one of the richest men in the world, had a one to 1.7 ratio.

The countries with the least number of vehicles included Bangladesh (one car for every 1,821 people), Zambia (one to 1,695) and Ethiopia (one to 1,351).

The figures showed that in 2001, there were more than 775 million vehicles in use in the world - one for every 10.4 people.