Car buyers going greener, CSO report shows

Irish drivers are increasingly opting for the greener option, with four out five cars bought in 2010 being in the lowest fuel emission group.

The Transport Omnibus report for 2009/2010 from the CSO, found that 80% of the 84,907 new cars bought in 2010 were in emission bands A and B — the greenest emission bands.

Of the total number of cars bought in 2010, almost 32% were petrol with the remaining 63.6% being diesel.

The CSO study found that, in the period 2000 to 2010, the price of petrol increased by a staggering 44.8%, while the price of diesel increased by 44% over the same period.

Meanwhile, women are officially winning the battle of the sexes when it comes to driving, as figures show 70% of all penalty points are issued to men.

In both 2009 and 2010, in cases where gender was recorded, women were responsible for just 29.9% of points issued, while men made up for 70.1%.

During 2009, a total of 324,685 penalty points were issued with speeding accounting for 73.4%. In 2010, the number of penalty points issued decreased by 12.1% with just over 66% issued as a result of speeding.

After speeding, driving while holding a mobile phone attracted the most penalty points in both 2009 and 2010 — 29,273 and 42,949 points respectively.

The largest increase in penalty point offences between 2009 and 2010 were for driving without an NCT certificate, which went from 115 to 1,966 — an increase of 1,610%.

Similarly the numbers of issued points for travelling without a certificate of road-worthiness went from 24 to 264 — an increase of 1,000%. Both of these offences carry a mandatory court appearance.

In 2010, the top five counties for penalty points issued for females were Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Wexford, and Wicklow, while for males, the top five counties were Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Wexford, and Meath.

The decade also showed a boom in car-buying, with the number of Irish-registered vehicles under licence increasing over 46% from 1,666,744 to 2,437,698.

Interestingly, between 2008 and 2010, people from Roscommon used their cars more than anybody else in the country, while those from Dublin were the least active on the roads.

In terms of public transport, the Luas was the only method of transport gaining passengers between 2009 and 2010.

In 2009 there were 212.9m passengers carried on bus services for a total of 159m kilometres. This figure dropped back to 198.6m passengers over a distance of 152.8m kilometres for 2010.

Bus Éireann carried 84.6m passengers in 2009, falling back to 79.6m passengers in 2010 — a drop of 5m.

A similar trend was recorded in terms of people using rail transport.

Iarnród Éireann carried 38.8m passengers in 2009, including 17.5m passengers on the Dart. The following year, this fell back to 38.2m rail passengers with 16.8m Dart users.

In contrast, the Luas Red Line handled 13.6m passengers in 2009 and 15.6m passengers in 2010, while the Luas Green Line handled 11.8m passengers in 2009 and 12m passengers in 2010.

Driving ahead

* In 2010 there were 1,872,715 private cars under current licence, down almost 30,000 from 2009.

* Four fifths of the 84,907 new private cars licensed for the first time in 2010 were in emission bands A and B, the greenest emission bands.

* There were 116,825 driving tests conducted in 2010. The average pass rate was 51%.

* In 2010 a total of 893,664 cars underwent the NCT. Over 94% of these passed after one or more tests.

* During 2010, a total of 285,439 penalty points were issued. Two thirds of these points were for speeding.

* Preliminary results show that there were 212 persons killed on Irish roads in 2010, compared with 238 in 2009.

* In 2010 there were 5,413km of national roads. Just 16.6% of the road network is motorway.

* Irish vehicles drove 43bn kilometres in total in 2010. Three quarters of these kilometres were driven by private cars.

* Irish private cars drove 16,962km on average in 2010.

* Between 2000 and 2010 the purchase price of petrol increased by 45% and the purchase price of diesel increased by 44%.

* In 2010, about 199m passengers were carried on scheduled bus services, 28m passengers were carried on Luas and 38m passengers were carried by Iarnród Éireann.

* In 2010, in excess of 1.2m journeys were made as part of the Dublin bike scheme.

* Between 2000 and 2010 bus fares went up 59%, rail by more than 54%, taxi fares by almost 59% and air fares rose by 16.2%.