Again more cars on Dutch roads

Posted on 18-09-2014 at 8:48 by CasperH – 20 Comments”

Take a guess: how many cars are there in the Netherlands? And how much more would that be than in the year 2000?

To the last question, first answer: almost 2 million more. And the first question to answer: there are approximately 8.154.000 cars around in the Netherlands. That is one car per 2,1 inhabitants!

The most common brand on the Dutch roads, Volkswagen: more than 1 in 10 cars (875.131 cars) is coming from the manufacturer from Wolfsburg. The second place is occupied by Opel (over 750,000) and the third place by Peugeot (more than 650.000).

Not so strange, therefore, that we with files have in this country, there is a reason (despite disappointing sales figures) never seen so many cars on the Dutch roads as today. In spite of all the discouraging measures and attempts of the government to give us the train, the car remains immensely popular. The means for the government, however, also a lot of income: it is estimated that each year 1.5 billion euros in motor vehicle tax collected, as Metro reports today in its paper edition.

Despite the increase in the number of cars decreased the number of fatal victims of road accidents. In 2008, there were 317 fatalities in a fleet of more than 7.5 million cars, last year there were 193 dead motorists to regret on a fleet of more than 8.1 million cars.

Fotocredit: Jeroen Hanselman on Autojunk.nl