To think car ownership is out of control in the UK

My neighbour over the road has two 20 year old daughters. They have six cars between them, plus a camper van. Nuts

I can fly to Spain for less than a train ticket to visit my DD, who lives 120 miles from me. They need to make public transport better and more affordable if they want less cars on the road.

Strong name to usage correlation. 🤣 Although I'm not sure you need defended from a cyclist crashing into you lol. But I do love big vehicles. I used to have pick up trucks as a hobby. They're just not practical for me now.

But it is.
My 70 year old neighbours own four - FOUR FFS!!!!! - cars between them. It's ridiculous.

I live in a town where most cars are those black tanks that everyone favours. They hog the roads and parking has become a nightmare. I hate it.

Go to France and it's like the UK was 20 years ago. Normal sized cars and rarely a tank to be seen.

Someone has probably mentioned this, but a lot of the problem is due to a) teens saying they "need" a car the moment they pass their test, whereas before they used to just drive mum and dad's and b) those same young people being unable to move out because of the cost of accommodation so the cars mount up. They don't want to have to get the bus or walk or cycle to work, or are unable to do so.

My DP's son is 21 and still at living at home. Cars are his hobby. He has three, all of which he keeps at home, one on the driveway and three in the street. I imagine the neighbours hate him. I would too. Thankfully I don't live in the same house as him.

I agree with you op. What gets my goat is people parking on the pavement when they have an empty drive. It’s also a nightmare taking my grandchildren for a walk in their pram, the amount of times I have to go in road with the pram because I can get the pram past a car half way on the pavement, I have to avoid certain streets because of this.
No wonder this country has a high rate of cardiovascular issues.

I'm working on HS2 atm. Will be interesting to see how much difference that makes. If it ever completes.

The amount of money being wasted is absolutely staggering. They're seemingly completely unable to order the right amount of concrete half the time so you end up with situations like Friday where I was asked to do two hours overtime but upon arriving at site the pour had already been finished and me and the guy behind ended up dumping a few grand worth of concrete into a big waste pit. And I then agreed to work on Saturday and got paid £250 for coming in and working a six hour day redelivering the dumped loads which they realised they did need after all - were for a separate application filling in a hole around some pipework.

It's absolutely mind blowing at times. It's never an exact art but most customers get it right. They estimate an amount and measure when they're nearly finished before ordering a make up load. A second make up would be be unusual. These guys are ordering several and then dumping them. And then it all needs broken down when dry by a digger and loaded onto tippers who then take it elsewhere to be dumped. Serious amounts of £££!

I’m not sure why the OP is accused of being a Reformer: they’d be more likely to talk of the ‘war on drivers’. I don’t think she’s talking about people who live rurally either, I feel it’s kind of accepted if you live in the countryside you kind of need to use private transport. She was sexist though, I didn’t care for that.

There was a discussion here a while back about the idea of “20 minute cities”, the idea that urban areas should be designed to ensure everyone had access to basic amenities within walking distance of their home. Reform types went mental, calling it communism. The sheer rage about checks notes having a local shop.

Yes it is a problem. Many and multiple causes. The death of the high street in favour of out of town retail parks. Housing crisis. Planning laws. Expensive and unreliable public transport. Cunts. I mean where to start fixing it.

There is probably a middle ground OP. There is probably also lots that most of us agree on:

• some people use their cars for journeys where there are viable alternatives but many others outside of cites / large towns don’t have an alternative
• some people own multiple cars but don’t need to
• some people have big cars and need them (larger families for example) and others not
• More adult children are living at home than previously, causing pressures on parking
• most of us would support better cycling infrastructure and public transport but, some rural areas simply could not ever generate demand for public transport (my immediate area included)

There are so many variables on need and personal circumstances.

I could support a financial penalty for adults with more than one registered vehicle. Larger and more expensive vehicles already attract a higher road tax cost, as they should.

That’s me!

We have a Defender. I like being above the traffic and having a better field of vision in London. Also, the way some absolute nutjobs drive means I wanted a tank of a car so that a cyclist/Uber moped/other car etc hitting us wouldn’t mean we would get hurt.

We only use it at the weekends and doing airport runs etc so like the big boot and being able to chuck stuff in.

If this means a flaming, ok. I like our car. Worked hard for it. I’m fine with it.

Sometimes, but often it’s because both parents work and have to get the child to school as quickly as possible before dashing off to work. I accept that there are some people who do drive ridiculously short distances (I know someone who is fully able-bodied who lives on the same road as the school and drives the one minute from her house to the gates). However, I reckon most of us are trying to fit a school run around inflexible work start times, or our kids have been allocated a school miles from home.

Public transport near me is utter shite. I can’t see how me taking 3hours to travel 16 miles can be any better for the environment than me taking 35 mins in my car. Sort public transport and I’ll use it but buses stop going around my area at 7pm and don’t start again until 7am at a whopping frequency of one an hour

I think the bigger issue is the cost and availability of public transport and the cost of housing increasing to the point that you often have to live further away from work to afford it.

For what my 4 bed detached house in a nice area is worth, to live near my work I'd get an end of terrace 3 bed ex-council house in a really grotty neighbourhood.

It's a 25 minute drive from work to my house and fuel costs me around £1,300 per year. I own my own car but I pay £500 for insurance and set aside around £750 a year to pay for repairs and servicing. Around £212 per month.

By public transport, the same journey would take me 95 minutes (each way) and consists of a bus, two trains and another bus and would cost me £3 each trip for the first bus, £3,600 for an annual train ticket and £1.50 each trip for the second bus.

Total cost per year = £4,680 or £390 per month.

The time saving of having a car is priceless too. 50 mins per day commuting rather than 3 hours!

I do agree with OP though that there's so many new cars nowadays due to the increase in PCPs. How some people are affording £600+ per month I don't know!

To be honest, I've never got to grips with how PCPs work, so I tend to either save and buy outright or take an HP on a car that I'll end up owning at the end of the term. My car is 8 years old, I've had it for 7 years old, but it's been paid off and fully mine for 4 years now. In that time I've been setting aside what I was previously paying in HP payments to save up towards the next car.

People are more time poor than ever now and this means they are more dependent on the most convenient / time saving option to them. Unless you live in a major city with excellent public transport, for the majority of people, that means owning a car.

1.5 kg in weight? I hope this is a typo

I would imagine most of the time it’s just because they like them, isn’t it?
like with most things.

I’d love a Mercedes G Wagon. I don’t need one, but if funds stretched I’d get one.

My post is generally directed at what I think is the insanity of thousands of streets in the UK being crammed to the max with large unwieldy cars, often multiple cars per household, and councils and governments just throwing their hands up and ignoring the issue because they like the revenue

@JacquesHarlow
There is so much wrong in just this paragraph, and your original post.

The old narrow streets were built in a time when the husband/father went to work and the wife/mother stayed at home. As a family, they were unlikely to be able to afford a car. These days both adults generally work in order to be able to support their family. In order to get to work, they both need transport - assuming they work for different companies. Public transport is rarely a viable option outside of our cities, so they need cars.

The kids back then usually moved out and started their own families. Again, probably unable to afford a car. The kids of today's era can't afford to move out at a young age, but they probably work, so they will also need transport.

The councils / governments are contributing to the problem by building on any plot of land they can get their grubby paws on, but not providing adequate parking for all those new houses/flats.

I live on an estate; it's grown rapidly in the 30 years I've lived here, and yes parking is a nightmare. We're lucky that our driveway can take 2 vehicles as parking outside our house is rarely available. Yes I know I don't own the road, but up until 5-10 years ago it was never a problem.

I do drive a 4x4. It's not new or a status symbol (it's 20 years old and all I could afford). I can park it, I can reverse park it, no problem at all. The reason why I have it is a long term back condition meaning I can't get in or out of a 'regular' car. Without it, I'd be stuck at home - staring at some random car parked outside my house, slowly losing my mind.

Taxing the limited parking isn't the solution. Providing enough parking for all the new builds is.

@JacquesHarlow whilst I agree with some of what you are saying, we just don’t have the infrastructure outside of big cities to be able to facilitate this. Victorian women were not driving to their jobs, whilst dropping their children at nursery and school on the way. I have a small car, live on a Victorian street and do understand the fustration you have. My main gripe is that the council allow small 2/3 bedroom homes to be converted into HMOs which then can house up to 6/8 adults, who then all have a car and take up even more of the road. Even worse is that those with minute front gardens that could fit a Corsa for example are not allowed to turn these fronts into drives because they aren’t ’big enough’ should someone want to park a large car on there. As someone who lived in London and now lives outside of it, there is a stark difference in the reliability and frequency of transport.

We need to fund public transport. No ifs, no buts.

We're a non-car-owning household, in large part due to my lifelong environmental principles and in part because neither of us could afford lessons as teenagers. I cycle everywhere instead. It has been incredibly restrictive job-wise, but we've managed up until now.

However, my current job is an hour and a half away by public transport, or an hour cycling. If you drive, it's 15 minutes. Nature of the job means antisocial hours, like back to back shifts and shifts less than 11 hours apart. When you finish at 9pm, and you have to be back in at 6am, you simply can't afford to be wasting that amount of time travelling.

Unfortunately, it's also the most fulfilling job I've ever had, so I'm learning to drive.

At least with tax you can do some good with other peoples idiocy.

What public transport?

FWIW I don't drive (vision issues) so when choosing a house I made sure it was near a busy bus route; ditto my son who's disabled, for whom a nearby bus was essential

Both now gone, and yet STILL the council bleat on about "encouraging the use of public transport" while more and more routes are cancelled, merely parroting silly stock phrases when this is pointed out

And oddly whilst it was men that always wanted big cars (X5, Range Rover, etc) the hybrid suv market is very popular with women nowadays. Things like the Nissan Juke.

I live near several roads of pretty Edwardian terrace houses. Until a few years ago all had little front gardens but now the vast majority have been paved over to park cars which also overlap the pavements. The council decided to change planning rules, despite previously stating that concreting front gardens were a flooding hazard.

I don’t look to the government to give me what I want. 🤷‍♀️

I would say it isn’t about cars. It’s about reliable and affordable public transport not being available to most of the country. It’s about time pressed parents who need to both work so don’t have time to walk to school on the school run.
It ultimately comes down to money and infrastructure