HAMBURG At the start of 1999, just over 56 million vehicles and trailers were licensed to use German roads, an increase of around three percent over the previous year. Registration statistics provided by the Federal Motor Vehicle Licensing Center in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, also showed that the number of private cars had risen from 41 million to 41.7 million in the period.

In other words, Germany now has an average of 508 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. (DPA)