Nearly 300,000 licensed vehicles

There are almost 300,000 licensed vehicles on the road, according to figures released by the National Statistics Office.

The number of vehicles has risen steadily over the past two years, from 280,242 in the first quarter of 2007 to 299,811 at the end of last month.

According to the NSO, 76 per cent of the cars are private vehicles while 16 per cent are commercial ones.

More than 5,000 new licences were issued between July and September, 80 per cent of which were for private vehicles. The majority of licences were for cars under 1300cc.

Just under two-thirds of the vehicles licensed in the third quarter of 2009 were used cars.

The NSO said 22 vehicles were exported in the third quarter of this year, while 1,041 cars were scrapped. There were 2,739 garaged cars.