Would you rather take a train or sit in this?
Statistics can be used to prove anything - 80 per cent of people know that. But here's a stat that will warm the hearts of bus and train-hating PHers everywhere: the majority of the UK's drivers would rather sit in a traffic jam than take public transport.
Okay, so only a slim majority of the UK's motorist's - 53 per cent - would risk a jam rather than sitting next to someone with personal hygiene issues while on the way to a destination nowhere near where they actually want to go, but that figure includes all drivers. So even after you take into account those who live in a big city with genuinely decent public transport, uber-environmentalists and those who - whisper it - don't actually like cars, there are more people out there who prefer a traffic jam to the train.
The survey, by the RAC foundation and Ipsos MORI, also indicates that the public has effectively given up on the prospect of a lower-congestion future driven by more efficient public transport. 77 per cent of drivers say they would find it difficult to adjust their lifestyles to being without a car, even though the same percentage would support an increase in the number and frequency of buses.
Professor Stephen Glaister, Director of the RAC Foundation, says: 'Over time people have come to regard congestion as less of an issue. But this flies in the face of the fact that congestion is increasing, so the depressing reality must be that motorists have become resigned to it. The public are also extremely pessimistic about what they expect from tomorrow's transport system. This is an indictment of the politicians who have repeatedly failed to tackle it in a meaningful way.
'People are reliant on their cars and although there is widespread support for improvements in public transport, only a minority say they would switch to it in the near future.'