Andy Hall coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 2008-05-27 10:39:18 +0100, Longshanks
said:

* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer
the current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

Umm yes.....

This is because public transport doesn't meet their requirements.

There are then two results:

1) People take their cars to town, which frankly is a PITA because of
parking arrangements being so poor in most places; and so

2) They go to out of town retail parks instead.

This is certainly true. I live in a village 3 miles outside of Tunbridge
Wells. Thanks to infrequent busses (outside of the school run hour) and
silly car parking charges to park in town, there are people here who
actually prefer, and claim it is no more expensive, to take their motor to
Bluewater, some 29 miles away.

Go figure what that does to the environment...

It is also a problem created in part by a lack of joined up thinking by the
local government bodies.