The Bicycle Advocacy Group are celebrating May - Bike to Work Month - by asking car drivers who can, to ditch the car and take a bike to help make a bit more space on the road for other car users.

In a statement, BAG said that while it understood that it may be difficult to encourage cycling to work for some people, there were those who have already made the switch, often finding it was just as quick to cycle as to drive in peak traffic for many short journeys.

“This year we’re asking people to man up to the challenge. I ride so my partner can drive her car to work and find a little more space on the road,” Jim Wightman BAG’s public relations officer said.

BAG believes that voluntarily giving up a car could slow down a ticking time bomb as it was not sustainable to keep building more car parks and roads, with an average of 6,000 additional vehicles each year.

“In the end you’ll either have to reduce the number of cars or knock someone’s house down to build a road or a car park. Neither would be popular or fair so we’d like to help stop that happening.”

Bike to Work Month and Bike to Work Day on May 8 demonstrates that there are other cyclists out there and that there is safety in numbers.

When car drivers get used to seeing more cyclists on the road accident figures usually go down. People feel safer and cycle more.

Cycling also benefits society and saved the EU an estimated €119 billion in 2012, according to the European Cycling Federation.