More from Recipro on our habits. To all those contractors and white van men. This questionnaire includes a number of questions which use the stages of change response scale to assess how willing people were to alter the way they used their cars (including cutting down on the amount they drove). The results from these questions are shown in Table 30.
Of the five behaviours shown in Table 30, the majority of drivers reported they were already driving in a fuel efficient way and intended to keep this up (78% of all drivers were classified at the maintenance stage). Of the remaining respondents these were split between those unaware of driving in a fuel efficient way (6%); those who had rejected doing this (4%); those thinking about it (6%); and those who had tried it but relapsed (4%).
Nearly two-thirds (62%) of all drivers said they had switched to walking or cycling instead of driving for short, regular journeys and intended to keep this up (the maintenance stage), although nearly one in five (18%) had rejected the idea of switching to walking or cycling (the second largest group for this behaviour). It should be noted that those who said they had already switched mode of transport need not have switched all of their short regular journeys. For example, a respondent who had switched to walking to instead of driving to work might still be making short regular trips by car for other purposes such as shopping.
In comparison, about a quarter (26%) of drivers said they had switched to public transport instead of driving for regular journeys (the maintenance stage), although nearly half (47%) had rejected this behaviour. One in ten (10%) drivers were at the pre-contemplation stage indicating that they “hadn’t really given the idea any thought” with a similar number either contemplating this switch (6%) or having made the switch only to relapse into using their car again (5%).
Just 1% of drivers had switched to and maintained use of an electric / hybrid / LPG car with the same proportion having switched at some point in the past and relapsed. Just over half (53%) said they had rejected the idea of switching and a quarter (26%) were at the pre-contemplation stage, having never really thought about doing this. However, 16% of drivers claimed to be contemplating making this switch.