Short car trips cost £1.1m a week

18/11/11

By Gemma Roberts

Regular car journeys of less than half a mile are costing UK motorists £1.1 million a week, research shows.

The one-minute trips are made regularly by around 30 per cent of drivers despite the soaring cost of fuel, Santander Credit Cards reveals. And with fuel prices on the rise motorists could be set to spend even more on the short trips.

The research reveals that around 58 million of these half-mile journeys, which would take between 10 and 15 minutes to walk, are made every year. The biggest culprits are drivers aged between 18 and 34 with 38 per cent admitting to making a weekly half-mile trip.

Callum Gibson, managing director at Santander Cards, said: "Despite soaring fuel costs, many motorists still give in to the temptation of using the car to make journeys that only take 10 - 15 minutes by foot."

Around 79 per cent of 'guilty trippers' admitted to making a short journey in their car between one and five times a week.

And between six and 15 journeys of 0.5 miles are made every month by around 1.8 million motorists. This is the equivalent of around 780 trips each year, research shows.

Despite all this just 35 per cent of drivers said they felt guilty about using their car for these journeys.