To think car ownership is out of control in the UK

It doesn't really take 1.5 hours for any bus to travel 6 miles, that would have it moving at 4mph, slower than central London. Cycling would take at most half an hour.

I have some sympathy for teenagers whose parents chose to live somewhere with no transport, but the public transport gaps won't be resolved while everyone hops into streams of cars and fabricates horror stories to justify why their particular family can't use public transport. Along similar lines to OP stating 1.5 hours on the bus, I've recently heard that "all trains are dirty" (brand new stock on most of their line, we use it), "buses are so infrequent" (max wait of 15 minutes), "buses take so long" (5 minutes longer than the car going up the same road, I've timed it), "bags would be too heavy" (just use a wheelie bag) etc etc.

We have an electric moped that DH uses to get to work - it's been brilliant and works out much cheaper than a car. We also have an electric cargo bike that we use for trips about town with DD, plus other bikes. And one family car (well it's my car really), that I use for commuting and occasional big trips.

Britain really needs to invest in decent (cycling) infrastructure if they want any chance of people becoming less car dependent. We live in the Netherlands where it's safe and often more convenient to cycle than it is to drive a car.

But I am sure that people have the cars they need, people don't have a small house then 2 cars per person. They might have two cars for a two person household for work and other duties.
I think you are being unreasonable to think people are just buying cars they don't need.
I have a driveway and two cars, but we absolutely need two cars. If I lived in a suburban terrace, we would still need two cars.
You are coming from a position of privilage to suggest make decisions on what transport people are allowed to use based on the size of their house.
Are you saying that if you can affoed a big house with a drive you are allowed a car, but if you can not afford it then you must take a bus or walk. It's just a bit fascist to try and dictate that.
What about the nurse and policeman who have two kids and work shifts and live in their tiny terrace? Are they allowed two cars, or will there be a rule based on income?

YANBU. Cars have so many negative side-effects on others.

• traffic noise
• pollution
• streets now look ugly as gardens are replaced by driveways
• new developments are ugly due to parking spaces
• increased flooding as drives are replaced by driveways
• children can't play out due to cars
• cycling becomes dangerous and polluted

Central London is so much nicer since the congestion charge and ULEZ. But I agree that public transport needs to massively improve.

The thing I'm noticing now is that there are so many more HMOs and I include multi-generational families in that. A friend has twelve people living in the house next to her! Its a five bed detached built originally as a three bed. They have five cars between them.

With the cost of housing, the increase in population and the state of public transport, its only going to get worse.

As for massive cars, they're a status symbol for some insecure people.

Personally, I think councils could fund better public transport if they didn't spend so much money on traffic hating initiatives like bus lanes, cycle lanes, bus/cycle priority junctions/traffic lights, one way systems, blocking roads to traffic, etc etc. Such initiatives just make the roads worse because they funnel traffic into ever narrower lanes, fewer roads, hold traffic back at junctions, etc. It's too much "stick" and not enough "carrot".

They'd be far better investing the same money in more bus routes, more frequent buses, better services at weekends and later into the evenings (if not overnight), i.e. more "carrot" and less "stick".

In the city where my son had to move for work, they have park N ride, but it stupidly finishes at 7pm. So if my son parks his car there to get the bus into the city centre, he can't finish work late, can't go for after-work drinks or a meal with his colleagues, can't go to the cinema, etc. Tourists in for a day sightseeing and enjoying attractions have to leave the city early! It's insane stopping so early.

Did they also stop telling their clients to look for jobs two to three hours away from home and telling them that no public transport is no excuse

Public transport is unreliable and expensive. I commute to a big city once per week and the cost of park and ride is more than paying for a full day of parking, when split with DH. Plus the park and ride buses and slow, they only run every 20 mins and are quite often full. We don’t have a train station in our village and the bus runs twice per day.

It’s difficult to buy a car that isn’t an SUV these days if you need a car big enough for a family. There are not many estate or saloon cars being made.

Most families need two working parents so two cars. Lots of mums on the school run are driving to work not going back home for the day.

Lots of teens living at home for longer means multiple cars per household. Although this was always the case for my household, there were three of us at home at once point aged 17-21 all with a car which was needed as we lived rurally and needed them to get to work and college.

I've never understood why people in London would even need a car, unless they physically can't take public transport or their job depends on it.

We live a 15min walk from the tube, and there's a reliable bus to it at the end of our road. Yet, most people on our street have cars and get VERY very annoyed about parking.

What do they even use their cars for? I'd really like to know!

OP, the amount of traffic on the roads bugs me as much as it does you (especially after dark with these awful dazzling headlights cars are fitted with nowadays!), but I feel that talk of motorists 'weaning' themselves off their cars misses the point somewhat. IME multi-car households are a thing of necessity for many because people need to travel in different directions, mainly for work. It was so much easier for households only having one car when more people could bus/walk/cycle to work (and when fewer women had jobs to travel to, come to that), but times and commutes have changed so much that imo if we want to cut down on car use, the public transport network needs a drastic overhaul/expansion. Until that happens, it's a moot point imho.

You’re being ridiculous. Why should I drive a Yaris they are hideous. Some people like cars, some handbags, some clothes, some fancy kitchens. As Pliny as you work hard for it you get to pick how you spend your money.

"It's typical Mumsnet"

and yet, here you are.

Are you a force for change and what would you propose?

Or is it just a grumble?

Agree on both counts. But a lot of the problem with the size of cars is the relatively recent rules re safety etc., such as thicker doors containing better structural support against side impacts, etc. It's really hard to find "small" cars these days, so it's not necessarily just people "choosing" big cars. Eg. one of ours is a 17 year old Citroen C3 which is a pretty small car. We've just bought a brand new one which is bigger in every direction, yet still the smallest in the current Citroen range. Sit in it and it's actually smaller due to the wider doors, etc. Another aspect is that people themselves are larger on average than they were a few decades ago, so need more space to actually get in and be comfortable, i.e. bigger doors, broader seats, etc.

Re public transport, yes. I once worked in the next town over, just 20 miles away across the county border. 25 minutes door to door by car. I once had to go by train for a few days, when my car was in for repair. Complete nightmare. Took around 3 hours door to door, bearing in mind walk to/from station at both ends, then two changes of trains (so 3 different trains in total). Only about 15 minutes actually "on" moving trains, but most of the time hanging around stations waiting for connections. Never again! After that, I just took the car to garages which offered a courtesy car! There were no direct buses as it was across the county boundary, so buses would take even longer as I'd have to go further away at each end to the larger cities, to get more rural "feeder" buses to/from the bigger cities to the town where I lived and the town where I worked, so more like 4 hours, but they didn't start early enough to get me to work for 9am anyway!

This disabled person who couldn't use public transport even if there were any where I live will give up her car when the OP does. Seems she's happy to have her own choices provided nobody else gets any. Why can't she walk or use public transport - then she wouldn't have to criticise other peoples (mostly women's) driving because it would have no impact on her.

ANyone who tinks there is plenty of public transprt clearly lives in a ver small area of the country, because in most of it public transport is almost non-existant, unreliable and often costly.

It's a vicious circle, though. If the public transport network isn't invested in and expanded, people will have no choice but to continue to drive. Personally I'd ditch my car if I could get everywhere I needed to by public transport, but I live semi-rurally and it's not possible. Too many destinations are too far to walk to and aren't served by public transport. I really don't think it's laziness that's driving (no pun intended) the widespread car use we see in this country.

🙄 even on a car ownership thread, the Reform mentionitus continues.

Where will the funding be coming from to pay for these public transport upgrades?

How would you solve the issue until the infrastructure is there so that people can travel about in the 24/7 society we now are?

It's cos it's easier.

So many people are adamant that they NEED their car. They don't. It's just easier. They lack resilience.

The local job centre used no cars for a week last year. I thought it was a brilliant idea! Everyone managed it, but quite a few people complained about walking 10 minutes or getting up half an hour earlier.

I agree and I'm a driver.

It's the multiple car owners per one household that gets me. Some families have five, one for each kid and parent and expect the space to park it all.

I think the government should put a limit of how cars per household but they wouldn't because they are too soft. I only have one car at my household. Any more than 2 is ridiculous.

I'm on your side about cars, but the problem is how rubbish public transport is and not how cheap cars are. I grew up in a village with about four buses a day to the nearest town, last one was 6pm; I just looked and its the same now. No bus that takes you to the nearest drs surgery in the next village. You'd need them to run every 30 minutes, and until at least 10 at night to stop driving from being attractive. Parking is already pretty expensive in the town itself and it doesn't put people off because they don't really have a choice unless they are able to make, say, a 15 minute dentist appointment last half a day.

Better cycling infrastructure would help, too.

But I do absolutely agree on the size of cars: I see so many nowadays that don't really fit in parking spaces. I appreciate people in rural areas might need or benefit from 4x4s, but few people need them to be so massive.