The line graph provides information about the proportion of households who possessed no car, one car and two or more cars over a 40-year period from 1961 to 2001.
It is evident from the chart that while the percentage of families who have no car showed an downward trend, the opposite pattern was observed in that of those households having 2 or more cars. There was wild variations in the date for those who have one car with an upward trend. Another noteworthy observation is that the families with no car was the largest category until being outstripped by those with one car.
In 1961, nearly 65% of British families did not have a car, about a third had one car, and no families owned two or more cars. The next 20 years, 15% of households owned two or more cars while the percentage of families with no car reached a peak of 50%. During the same period, the figure for households with one car decreased sharply to approximately 35%.
From 1981 onwards, an increasing number of families bought an additional car, pushing the percentage of households with two or more cars to a record high of nearly 30%. The percentage of families without a car kept decreasing to less than 30% by 2001. Families with only one car were still the most prevalent, but the data dropped slightly to about 43% of the car ownership at the end of the period.