Taiwanese may drive less amid high oil prices

Should the price of petroleum at the pump rise to over NT$30 per liter, but not exceed NT$35 per liter, 81.5 percent of the car owners say they will drive their own private vehicles less frequently, the poll found.

Should the price of petroleum at the pump rise to over NT$35 per liter, but not exceed NT$40, 95.2 percent of the car owners say they will definitely use their own cars less often.

A total of 65.5 percent of the car owners in the southern port city of Kaohsiung say their will consider driving their own cars less in the face of soaring oil prices, topping all citizens in other areas around the country in this regard.

By comparison, 62.5 percent of car owners in Taiwan province (excluding the Taipei and Kaohsiung metropolitan areas) and 55.8 percent of car owners in Taipei City say they will use their own cars less in the face of soaring oil prices.

Given increasing costs, some 22.5 percent of respondents say they will use public transportation systems instead of their private vehicles, an increase of 3.9 percentage points over a similar poll conducted in 2004, MOTC officials said.

However, 77.5 percent of car owners will not opt for public transportation systems, citing reasons including living too far away from train or bus stations (24.3 percent) ; such systems being too time consuming (16.8 percent) ; and low mobilization efficiency (14.9 percent).

The poll also found that owning and using a private car costs owners, on average, NT$6,484 per month, NT$34 less than in 2005.

Of the NT$6,484 outlay, NT$2,943 was spent on fuel, NT$1,021 on maintenance, and NT$803 on parking. The remaining went to insurance, taxes, car washes and and miscellaneous costs, in that order, according to MOTC officials.

The MOTC randomly selected 20,000 out of 5.5 million private cars registered in the country for the poll, which has a 1 percent margin of error.