Quote:
Originally Posted by Pudding4brains
Hi All,
............I get a very "iffy" feeling in my stomach with statistics like this though. What did they actually measure? The average mileage driven per person? Per drivers license? The average mileage put on a car? Only privately owned ones, or company cars and lorries included?
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Yes, I've been trying to find some figures and, like you, I think an overview based on 'mileage' alone is rather crude and not very informative.
There are some more useful figures scattered about which break down motoring into:
- type of fuel used - diesel is more energy efficient than petrol, for instance;
- type of motoring - at extremes, the difference between cruising long distances on the flat and stop-start driving in a city;
- nature of the car - small efficient or a big gas guzzler?
- number of people in the vehicle ...
So mileage means very little and, as you say it may be due to more people taking to the air (
) or to people using public transport (
).
Probably the more meaningful measure must be how much fuel is used per head, making allowances for the differing carbon efficiencies of different fuels. There seem to be great differences within Europe for petrol
versus diesel usage .....