Without a doubt, British people love their cars. Despite years of rising controversy over traffic jams and concern for the environment, we overwhelmingly use our cars to get to and from work.

In England, almost half of homes own one car. A quarter own two vehicles.. Approximately 1% of homes own four or more cars.

THE KEY FACTS
Britain loves the car Car preferred for commuting London has different patterns Low level of commute-cycling

According to the census, there are 23,936,250 cars in active use in England and Wales.

The patterns are almost identical in Wales and Northern Ireland, including the number of households which don't use a car – just over a quarter.

In Scotland, there is a higher proportion of households without cars (34%) but almost exactly the same number of households with one car (43%). Fewer homes own two cars (18%). Scotland's 2.1m households between them own 2,044,018 cars.

The exception to all of this is London. A majority of London homes do not own a car. A raw reading of this would suggest it is because they are poorer.

But London also has dramatically higher levels of use of public transport as more people choose to avoid driving in the capital's near-constant traffic jams.