To think car ownership is out of control in the UK

I'm not sure the OP is complaining about boats clogging the high street in towns up and down the country, but you never know!😂😂⛵🚢

I wonder how much of this issue, aside from cats being bigger these days, is the fact that young people can’t afford to move out of the family home as easily anymore. This would lead to more working adults in the same household needing (to what extent could be debated of course!) vehicles to travel to work etc.
Also, less mums are sahms these days I think, again due to life costing a fortune, so where they may have been fine to pootle about with the kids by walking or using public transport, they now find themselves needing a car to commute/get the kids to nursery etc.

Yeah its the usual MN cognitive dissonance.

I saw that thread, I was quite angry about it as yes I live in a HA house but as already stated I am a community nurse and do have a new car as I need something I can rely on for my job, it’s an older property so never had a drive

Well housing associations can be assured in the knowledge that they dont have to thanks to the attitudes shown here ............https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5329859-council-houses-owning-brand-new-cars

Let's make life more difficult for people who can't afford a house with a drive 🙄

I quite like the Japanese idea of having to have somewhere to park the new vehicle before you can buy one but I don't see how it can work for second-hand vehicles.

Easy. You can’t transfer ownership or tax a vehicle unless you can prove you have a parking space.

I agree to some extent but it is a huge issue to tackle. I think it goes hand in hand with a loss of community. Nothing is local anymore. We need to:

Improve public transport (regularity, cleanliness, safety, convenience, routes, etc)
Increase local in-community facilities so less need for transport (doctors, dentists, minor injury units, shops, etc.)
Build new villages with centres and community facilities (see above), not bland housing estates.
Go back to the days when children attended the nearest school so most are within walking distance (if not, school buses serving the whole catchment should be available).
Allow more people to work from home or in local community multi-office hubs (with parking).
Ban commercial vehicles/motorhomes etc from overnight street parking.
Limit the number and size of vehicles parking on residential streets (permits, limits per household, etc)

I quite like the Japanese idea of having to have somewhere to park the new vehicle before you can buy one but I don't see how it can work for second-hand vehicles.

I agree that PCPs encourage people to buy bigger as they can afford it. I also wish the luxury car market would consider making more smaller cars - the best things can come in small packages!

You are putting the cart before the horse!
We don't need bigger spaces to accommodate larger vehicles, space is finite!
We need smaller vehicles to fit into the space available.

It was about 3-4 miles, I can't remember exactly. It usually took that long (or longer) as there were always 'temporary' traffic lights.

But not high enough. We're talking about substantial increases to make any difference.

Monster truck manufacturers push back hard against anything which threatens profits. They will lobby the government to prevent anything which disincentivizes sales of the giant metal hulks which dominate our streets ☹️

Certainly agree with higher VED for larger cars

Larger cars pay higher VED already.

Certainly agree with higher VED for larger cars, but I'd also extend that to vans and pick up trucks. At the moment, such vehicles are popular with self employed (tradies who obviously need them, but others who use them just for tax perks) because of low benefit in kind rates (if a limited company) and higher capital allowances (if a sole trader). Lots of the likes of IT consultants are driving around in Mitsubishi pick up trucks because of tax relief and low BIK (thankfully the law has now changed for new purchases, but still remain the tax breaks for those already in use). Same with transit vans etc - lots of people don't actually "need" them but like the tax breaks. It all needs changing. Vans and trucks are a blight on busy residential streets and we either need to increase excise duty or reduce tax breaks for the self employed, to discourage people who don't actually need big vans from buying them.

This is where the 'stick' may be needed for high polluting/heavy cars. Make VED 5k or even10k a year for an SUV (based on weight) and scale down to £50 for an electric Yaris or whatever. The shift in car choice will mean small cars causing less damage to roads, take up less space for parking, less fatalities in pedestrians getting run over. This way, those that are rich/stupid enough to drive an SUV pay the shortfall. Those that do the damage pay most.

Introduce Congestion charge in city centres besides London. City centres like Manchester should not be facilitating car journeys without a significant cost to the driver. Charge a parking Levy on city centre workplace car parks. Redirect the funds to public transport. Exemptions for blue badge holders.

The problems are to do with interlocking vicious circles, the larger your vehicle the more you are able to dominate the space. Everyone tries to dominate vehicles get larger and larger.
As we have more and more cars it feels less and less safe to walk or cycle anywhere. Lack of exercise means that people get fatter and fatter, exercise becomes more and more uncomfortable, you need a bigger and bigger car because you're getting fatter and fatter.
I gave up driving 15 years ago, walk or cycle wherever I need to go.

I live in a city. Our public transport is crap.

It seems to only work well in London and Manchester.

For someone full of aggressive statements you seem very ignorant of the reasons for multi car households. The vast majority are not one person living in a house with 5 cars. With property being unobtainable you people are moving out much much later. We have more multigenerational households. We have multiple ADULTS living in a single house and just as they would if they lived in several apartments, they all need a vehicle.

people with young families have dc allocated schools too far to walk and they don’t have time to share cars as parents need to drop dc off on the way to school.

we no longer live with one working adult and one stay at home parent.

It’s about changes in the way we live way beyond how many cars we have that are driving the situation of multiple cars per household. I don’t know anyone with more than one large car/SUV. They may have multiple cars but only one is a larger one. The rest are small as they are owned by young adult dc

as for your comments on women, you lost all credibility from that point onwards

My issue are the tiny or no driveways on a lot of houses. I would never buy a house that I couldn't park at least 3 cars on my driveway. This means I'll never buy a small terrace or city centre living. Limits my options of where to live but I'm ok with that.

Car park spaces need to be larger given the bigger cars around now. Public transport only really works well in cities and suburban areas.

Gotta break the cycle somehow

Also the government raise huge amounts of tax from cars, so they're not going to give that up AND pay for the necessary improvements in public transport. The tax rises across the population would be enormous to cover the lost revenue and increased costs.

👍 agreed