THERE may be more vehicles in Guernsey than people who can drive, but the Environment minister says people’s motoring habits are improving.
In 2007, the total number of vehicles taxed was 53,563. The island has 303 miles of roads, or 1,599,840 feet, which means each car has only 29.8 feet of road.
But Peter Sirett said he thinks there are actually fewer on the roads now than in recent years. ‘Just because there are more cars in the island doesn’t mean there are more on the roads,’ he said.
‘I know people with collections of cars, a dozen or so. I have three, but I don’t use them at the same time. They sit in the driveway.’
The total number of motor vehicles has risen by 8,627, from 44,936 in 2000. But Deputy Sirett said he thought the traffic situation was improving because people are choosing to leave their vehicles at home.
‘I see a bit of a sea change, people are changing their motoring habits,’ he said.
‘They are starting to realise that the cost of using a car is becoming a very significant weekly expense, second only to the mortgage, I think.’
He thought the increase in the price of fuel was a contributing factor.
‘To a large extent it has become self-policing. There has been a realisation that driving a Chelsea tractor a couple of miles to take the kids to school is a bad idea.’
Deputy Sirett pointed out that more and more people were using buses as well. ‘The number of people using them has definitely increased sharply. I use the bus regularly,’ he said.
That is particularly true for students travelling to school.
‘We thought we had put on enough buses for the schools, but even more children are using them than we thought.’
‘Cruise passengers have been using them to travel around too. It costs only 60p to go from Pleinmont to L’Ancresse.’
But the popularity is causing difficulties too.
‘Unfortunately you become a victim of your own success. Island Coachways is having difficulties finding enough drivers.’
He said four more second-hand buses had been bought a month ago.
Deputy Sirett said St Peter Port’s car parks were the best place to see evidence of the traffic changes. ‘I think it’s easier to park in Town than for a very long time, perhaps because people are coming to work by bus.’
‘Only a year ago it was a nightmare and you would go driving round and round looking for a space.’
He said the small car parking on the Victoria Pier was also helping.
‘The small car section is full every day. We are looking to expand on that in other areas too, the only problem being that the manufacturers have made this year’s small models slightly too big in some cases.’
The minister said it often made more sense to hang on to a car than try to swap it with a dealer, which could prove very difficult because there were so many second hand cars around.
‘It is especially economically sensible to keep a car in your drive now because you don’t have to pay tax on it, only insurance,’ he said.
Public Services’ head of transport services, Peter Tidd, said he was not surprised by the statistics.
‘Of course there are more cars than people who can drive. Many people own more than one.’
He could not say whether Guernsey was the only place in the world where this statistic was true.
‘It’s probably more extreme here because it’s an affluent little island where a lot of people have a lot of money.’
Article posted on 17th September, 2008 - 2.29pm
15 Article Comments
If there are less cars on the road nowadays why the parking problems?
I also find it sad that the Environment Minister has 3 cars at home. How does that protect the environment? These cars need to be shipped here, used on our roads and then disposed of.
If I were Environment Minister then I would be more interested in the environment than the luxury of 3 cars.
Surely the EM needs to set an example to the rest of us? He must drive the reduction of fuel hungry vehicles in our island and not make these sort of claims that are frankly irresponsible.
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If people can own ‘a dozen or so’ cars, they can pay more tax and aid the distribution of wealth created by the finance industry.
Otherwise what’s the point of it?
It just seems like a revenue machine for a few whilst the public get forced to pay for their greedy mistakes.
Less than ten metres between cars. Idyllic? Freedom of choice to waste disposable income is not a measure of success.
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If the figures are calculated from the number of cars taxed, does that mean that officially in 2008 there will have been no cars on the road ??
I hope they actually mean ‘registered’ not ‘taxed’ …..
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It does not matter how many cars are registered or taxed in this island, the fact remains that it is only possible to drive one at a time.
As for 29.8 feet of road for each, I take it the amount of our roads closed at any one time has not been factored into this calculation…..that would make it about 10 feet of road for each!!
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Who is this guy? What a ridiculous thing to say. Is he really trying to tell us that of the 8600 increase in number of cars, a _significant_ proportion of those are in collections somewhere and aren’t on the roads? I’d love to if there’s any fact behind his assumptions or if it’s just ill-educated guesswork.
All he’s done with his three cars is prove that a) he’s being paid too much of our tax money, and b) he couldn’t care less about the Environment.
Show us our motoring habits have improved by showing us an uptake in alternative forms of transport, such as the bus or bicycles. (Good luck with that, by the way.)
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I thought the article said there were 53,563
vehicles taxed in 2007. When did that change to refer only to cars ?
I would think that figure will include the bus
fleet , trade vans and lorries, taxis and any number of L-plated scooters.
I always seem to have hundreds of yards of space on my journey from L’Islet to Perelle.
The parking problem in Town was caused by the IDC many years ago insisting that the finance industry should be concentrated in and around the old run down Truchot area
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we need to follow the japanese system and limit the size of all new cars coming into the island. in 10 to 15 years time everybody will have more space and a cleaner island……yes, that goes for the over sized buses as well.
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There are so many ways to get cars off the road. Imagine how many car trips would be saved if our recycling was picked up? or if we could order our groceries from the coop online? Local high school students could just make the website as part of an IT project- so easy!
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“But Deputy Sirett said he thought the traffic situation was improving because people are choosing to leave their vehicles at home”.
Yeah, and the sewage problem wouldn’t be a problem if everyone stopped defacting…
And the landfill problem wouldn’t be a problem if everyone stopped consuming….
Who is this guy??? Minister for the bleeding obvious!!!
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Surely the root cause of the problem is over-population.
We have reached a crossroads – do we allow our finance industry to continue to grow freely – which means more workers, more building and more cars; eventually leading to our becoming a mini Hong Kong? Alternatively do we want to preserve what is left of our environment and culture and restrict commercial growth?
It is a straightforward choice between economic growth or protection and preservation of our Island. We have already reached the ‘tipping point’ and there is little room for commpromise. What do we do?
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This island loves to limit peoples lives with licences – why not issue all households with ‘car use licences’.
That way the states can restrict all these unnecessary big cars and households buying multiple cars. Lets see, one car for mummy, one for daddy, one for each child and then all and sundry can drive the 5 miles (at the most for most islanders) to their workplace or school. That way our roads don’t get lonely and global warming provides us with better summer temperatures.
I am sick of seeing single occupancy cars driving into town.
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AD, where do you see these cars with only one person ? My car starts of at home with 5 people in it and ends up at work with 1. Just because you only see one person in it doesn’t mean it’s only had one person in it.
The same with buses – just because there appears to be no one on a bus when one sees it, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been full earlier or will be later ….
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I have just come back from a holiday in Guernsey and the only thing that spoilt it was the TRAFFIC, the traffic jams and cars just parked any where they wanted.
It does look as if you have a big problem! and you need to address it before you become like the rest of the UK one long traffic jam.
It was lovely to get back to France’s roads.
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It’s pretty simple to solve this problem really: Build an underground rail system.
If people could walk a few minutes to their local tube station & get to the centre of town in 2 minutes for the price of an annual commuter ticket who wouldn’t?
Oh hang on, I forgot about capital outlay & the fact that we’re already broke. And then there’s the loss of tax revenue caused by people not using their cars. And how long before the trains & stations would become vandalised & full of rubbish?
Perhaps it’s not as easy as I thought after all.
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Apparently in Bermuda (an island similar to Guernsey in that it’s small, finance industry-driven and really densely populated – just a bit warmer!) they’ve recently tackled the same problem of too much traffic head on. They took three key steps: restricted the size of vehicles; limited car ownership to one per household; and banned hire cars. (The ban on hire cars is because they have 300,000 visitors a year – I’m not sure how we compare.) These measures may seem drastic, but they’re not nearly as drastic as the likely consequences of not dealing with this problem now while we have the chance.
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