To think it's ridiculous how people go to pieces when they don't have their car

This is me, haha - although the very rare times I am without a car I will either walk (if there's time) or get a taxi. I will never use public transport! In my city the buses are filthy, overpriced and arrive/depart whenever they feel like it - I certainly wouldn't be able to reliably schedule my day around it.

I think it depends how well connected you are. I know people who live in cities who choose to use public transport instead of a car as it's easier.

However if I found my car wasn't working when I left for work it would be very stressful. There was one occasion I had to get public transport to work as my car was in the garage and it took me 2.5 hours. My husband recently had to get a bus to a GP appointment and it took 1.5 hours. It's not realistic and I couldn't manage for long without a car.

I know so many people like this, in fact I only experienced the madness at it's fullest last weekend when sil couldn't come over because her car was getting fixed, she lives on a direct bus route to my house or a 15 minute walk, she was horrified that I would suggest either.

A man in dhs job rang in sick for 4 days because his car was out of action, again a direct bus route, tram line and DH even offered to collect him but nope he could do any of these without his own car .

Well it depends where you live. I’m a carer for my Mum who lives 40 mins away by car, I get anxious if my car is off the road as it takes 3 hours to get to her by train or bus.
Also the local buses here stop at 6pm.

I’m really torn. I live in London where public transport is great and driving is hideous but I grew up in a very rural location where public transport just does not happen. We ARE too reliant on cars and that is hideous for equality and for the environment but it’s no one’s fault on an individual level - it’s a systemic problem with the rest of the country and the lack of effective public transport.
People should grow up though, getting on a bus is not the end of the world (although if the car broke down unexpectedly I think being late is understandable!).

Come on OP it's like when your expecting a nice comfy train journey and hear the dread 'rail replacement bus' anything that impacts on your usual routine is hard work.

When they were extending the tram here I spent a good few months taking an extra 30 mins on my commute and it was a pita.

she needs to do the same, surely?
Ah... is that what it's about really? She's getting offered help you don't?

When we bought this house almost 30 years ago there were several buses every hour from the main road (a 2 minute walk away). The service was cancelled 15 years ago. To get a bus it's a 10 minute walk. Then you have a couple of buses every hour. To get to the local town (an absolute dump) it takes 20 minutes on the bus. To get to the nearest city it's an hour or more! By car it's 5 minutes to town and 15 minutes to the city. Taxis are expensive (one firm monopoly), ubers are rare, no train, underground etc so a car is a necessity not a luxury if you have young children or don't work from home.....

OP, would you also expect someone who's never used a tram system to be able to effortlessly navigate one at a moment's notice to get across town as quickly as a local?

I'm sure even you would expect to leave extra time to work out the transport system if you had to attend a meeting in a new area where you didn't know the system.

You find public transport easy to navigate because you're used to it - you know which app to use, how reliable the timetable is, what payment methods are accepted, where the bus stops are, what to do when you get on the bus, and so on, and you probably have more confidence in navigating different areas by public transport based on your own experience. But other people have less experience and knowledge of how it works than you do, so it's not as easy for them as it is for you.

Yes, I agree it’s an inconvenience but I don’t like the comments about having to use a bus being sneered at. One of DH’s relatives said who on earth goes on a bus nowadays ? To which I replied, I do … there was silence. The strange thing was they all knew I did! We had one car and at that stage DH drove it to work every day as there was no direct bus route and we live a short walk away from my work. How did they think I took DS out to the museums etc in town on my non working days?

She doesn’t need to though as she has someone willing to help her.

are you really saying if someone said to you “I’m going to Asda do you want a lift there” you would say “nah I will stick to the bus”?

I need my car to work, so being without it even for 24 hours isn't really an option and I'd need to hire something.
But if it wasn't for that I'm not particularly attached to it. Yes it's convinient, but I didn't learn to drive until I was 35, so spent a good part of my adult life dealing with public transport.
I think it also depends where you live. When I'm in London it's easier to get the bus to the shops, or a train into town than drive. If you're rural and live miles from a station or are served by infrequent busses then a car is probably necessary.

I live somewhere where there is zero public transportation, not just inadequate public transportation. I love where I live, but this is definitely a drawback. The nearest shop from me is over two and a half miles away. Even if the weather wasn't frequently unsuitable to be outside for very long, I wouldn't want to walk almost six miles round trip, carrying groceries, just to be able to do my shopping. So, yes, for some people having a car really is a necessity.

But when I go other places, either on holiday or to visit family, I use public transportation as often as possible. I don't understand the mindset of someone who just wouldn't, assuming it's reliable and convenient.

You have no idea though about people's arrangements and what they need to be doing with their car - for instance, I need to do the school run (15 mins), then drive back to the train station to take the train into London - and then the other direction in the evening.

I've just looked up going to my kids school by bus - one way, it's 1 hour 4 minutes, with one bus every 90 minutes and that's even without the inevitable delays and cancellations. The kids school has a window for morning drop-off that we have to adhere to, so a bus every 90 minutes just doesn't cut it. This is not a matter of being organised, or being snooty about public transport, it's just completely impossible without a car. When my car is in the shop I either need a courtesy car, or if there isn't one available we have to take taxis which is only affordable for a day or two.

I think it's ridiculous how people are rude about public transport, I have no issue with it at all and take the train daily. But conversely, public transport is just not an option in many areas which is a real shame.

They’d probably completely forgotten you use the bus. I couldn’t tell you how my colleagues travelled to work.

It also very much depends where you live. Where I am public transport is shocking both in how regular it is and how reliable. I’m in a medium size town but the bus system is poor and we have no train station.

if you live in a city or somewhere with good transport links then it is much easier when you don’t have a car

I think it depends on what public transport is like in your area and if it even exists.

I'm in Somerset and there are two train lines that run through the county and from east to west and nothing from north to south of the county. There is one bus a day from my village to the local town which leaves at around 10.15 and returns at about midday so no good for work or school commutes.

The anti car posts are almost always based on good public transport. We don't all have that.

In fairness to your SIL, doing a big shop with a toddler on public transport is hard.

To be fair with the second example they were probably at least partly commiserating about how much of faff and expense it would be to sort the broken car.

Lots of people really dislike public transport and tbh in this country its understandable - I sometimes take the bus into my local city centre and its usually late, takes nearly 3 times longer than driving, is often filled with loud, smelly and antisocial people (there are, of course, loud smelly and antisocial car users but I don't have to sit next to them and smell them or listen to their shit music if we are in our individual cars!), and last time some twat threw a brick through the window, several people got injured and the rest of us had to walk the remaining two miles home in the dark in the middle of the night (it was the last bus and too short a distance for a taxi to come out) through a dodgy area.

That's if there is public transport going to where you want it. Door to door for me to drive to my parents house is 40 mins. To get public transport would take 1 bus, then a train, then another bus, then either a third bus that only comes about once an hour or a forty minute walk. About 5 hours in total. They live in a good sized town too, not rurally.

So yes some people act as though using public transport is unpleasant and inconvenient - because often it is!

Your SIL seem to be taking it too far in the first example as I don’t know why she can’t try and adapt now that its a long term thing. Like she’s can’t rely on lifts from your mil forever.
However for your second example, I don’t believe that anyone was calling them every hour as that’ll just be stupid but I can see why they were an hour late. When you have a car and your journey just takes 15 minutes or something, you don’t get out of the house an hour earlier just in case your car doesn’t start. When it happened, he obviously needs to organise somethings like if needed recovery so that the repairs can be done and he can be early the next day, they then take public transport etc which means they can’t be there the time they expect. I’ll expect them to have organised themselves for the next days anyway. If my car broke down and I’m going to work, I’ll just have to work from home that day and my employer will prefer than to me getting in 1.5 hours later which is what will happen after I’ve done my school and nursery run which normally takes minutes before getting a taxi to work.

You do work with some people who have led a sheltered life OP. I would not be happy to work with them in a real crisis.

Though I agree that smelly people are a reason some avoid public transport, and I am not convinced lack of access to a shower is the reason for many of them.