With International Car Free Day being held on Friday, more than four out of five journeys in the European Union are by car, a new transport survey reveals. And car ownership in the 25 EU member states has risen by nearly 40 per cent since 1990.
There is now nearly one car for every two people, with the highest car density in Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal and Germany, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office. Luxembourg has 659 cars per 1,000 population, with Ireland at 385.
In the same period the length of railway lines across Europe decreased by 6 per cent - and in 2003, 83 per cent of total passenger transport was by car.
All EU countries except Hungary record car transport use at over 70 per cent. In Hungary the figures remains relatively low at 59 per cent.
On the other hand, EU-wide bus and coach passenger use is just 9 per cent, with rail use at only 7 per cent.
Germany has the largest number of passenger cars on its roads (45 million), followed by Italy (34 million), France (30 million) and the UK (27 million).
The increasing wealth of some newer EU countries from the former communist bloc is reflected in major increases in the volume of private cars - for example a 167 per cent rise in Lithuania.
But while the volume of cars on Europe's roads is rising steadily, the number of road accident deaths is dropping: in 1991 the EU average stood at 162 per one million inhabitants, but that fell to 95 in 2004. The Irish figure of 126 deaths per million inhabitants fell to 94.