An average car only moves around 4 percent of the time, so the cost of maintaining it is disproportionately high compared to the time it is used. It's like keeping a cow for a glass of milk every day – with this example, the Clean Air Action Group encourages everyone to choose car-sharing if they absolutely have to use a car.

“Would you buy a cow for a glass of milk a day?” asks the question in a new video by the Clean Air Action Group, created in the framework of the Clean Cities Campaign. After all, it wouldn't be worth buying and maintaining a whole cow just to drink a few glasses of milk a day.

“The situation is similar with cars. To own a car, you have to buy it, you have to fill it up, find a parking space, get it repaired, and it ends up as waste, which you also have to take care of. And as time goes by, its value decreases”, says Márton Vargha, Transport Policy Officer of the Clean Air Action Group.

Fortunately, more and more people are realising that they don't need their own car even if they want to drive. More and more companies now offer car-sharing services, and their users often spend less than if they had their own car. Moreover, a process has already started in Hungary – which is becoming common in major Western European cities – whereby a wide choice of car-sharing cars means that everyone can choose the one that suits them best, and even premium cars are becoming available to everyone, as the per-minute rates are typically low.

Photo made in Berlin by András Lukács

Another big advantage of car-sharing cars is that they can be parked for free in many places and the car-sharing company pays for everything from maintenance costs to insurance and highway stickers. Moreover, you don't have to worry about your car being damaged or stolen, because if there is a problem, the service provider will take care of it.

“Car-sharing is also a good solution from an environmental point of view,” points out András Lukács, President of the Clean Air Action Group. “This is also because car-sharing companies are providing more and more electric cars, thus widely offering exhaust-free transport.”

The NGO therefore advocates that more people should switch to car-sharing to reduce the number of cars, and thus parking problems and the amount of toxic emissions in the air.