The average British car is parked 23 hours a day, according to a new study by the RAC Foundation. The organization released the data as part of a new report that used data from leading net-zero data analysis consultancy Field Dynamics, the Ordnance Survey, and the government.
The figures show that the average British car spent just 4.4 percent traveling in fiscal year 2018/19, but parked almost three-quarters (72.6 percent) of its time at its owner’s place of residence. The rest of the time was parked outside the home.
According to the report, these numbers would have been known to motorists more than 20 years ago, as the amount of time spent on the road is roughly unchanged. In 1995-96, the RAC Foundation said cars were driven 4.9 percent of the year and parked at home 69.1 percent of the time.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, not only reveals that our driving habits have changed over the past few decades, but says that this is good news for electric vehicles. According to Gooding, the numbers give drivers ample time to recharge their vehicles either at home or in a parking lot, so they have enough battery power to cover most trips.
“The average car is only driven one hour in 24 hours, a proportion that is almost as high as it was in 1995,” he said. “This lack of use, however, has a silver lining. This means that there are many ways to charge the next generation of electric vehicles, especially at home or at work – and thus make the most of the “time out” in our cars instead of having to make a certain trip to refuel.
“There is clearly a lot of attention being paid to providing a fast public charging network to combat range anxiety among drivers, but this data shows that there is a lot of scope for slower, potentially cheaper charging devices to be installed in people’s homes wherever the average car spends so much time. “
Research by the RAC Foundation also shows that cars have increased significantly over the past 50 years, and so has the number of cars on UK roads. In 1965, the top five selling cars in the UK had an average width of 1.5m and length of 3.9m, but the top five sellers in 2020 had an average width of 1.8m and length of 4, 3 m. While there were 7.7 million cars on British roads in 1965, there are 31.7 million today.
“The cars are not just getting bigger; there are more of them, too, ”said Gooding. “This puts enormous pressure on the roadside space and explains why many of us have the feeling that the parking bays in parking garages don’t seem big enough.
“It is also crucial that house garages are often not suitable for their intended purpose. The planning system has to recognize that the garage design has to catch up with the vehicle design, or throw in the towel and recognize that in practice these are garden houses, which means that it has to think again about where the family car is parked. “
