Realities of life without a car?

[FeetOnly]

DH wants to give up the car. We live in a small village with a small supermarket with post office counter. Bus runs twice an hour (not every 30 mins) except at 10 and 3 when it's once an hour.

Currently I use the car twice a week - shopping and DC activity delivery when DH wfh. DC would still be late for activity if the bus is on time and the connection connects. Once a week for a club taxi.
We use the car at weekends to go on day trips. To go stand up paddling etc. Also to go on holiday.

DH reckons we can do all this by bus/train. [I personally don't see how we can transport e.g. four paddle boards, pumps, picnic etc.] Occasionally rent a car if need be.

He asked me today what plans I would have for the shopping. I said a weekly online shop. He does not want me to do this, says we will waste too much food and it's better to go every couple of days. On the scooter he is planning to use to go to work unless the weather is too bad for him to take it So he's clearly expecting me to go into town and do the shopping by bus/shopping trolley. Now he's annoyed with me for not being on board with saving the environment and says we should keep the car. Of course that means if anything goes wrong with it and any repairs need doing it will be my fault for not selling it.

-I will admit I did all shopping by bus before Covid and him being allowed to wfh.
-I did all DC activities by bus.
-He moaned constantly about the bus/train commute the first year he was working and didn't yet have a parking space.
-He freaked out about Covid and made me cancel all the DC's activities even once everything was up and running again and I wasn't allowed to take the DC's on the bus until about a year ago. He still won't go e.g. to a cinema or swimming pool or let me take them there.

What is life like without a car?

Keep the car, life will be much harder without it living rurally. Good suggestion upthread, try living without using the car for a week, and see how you get on.

If his motivations are environmental and not financial surely you can keep the car but use it less?

Don't stand for this behaviour though. It's controlling, whether it's naively motivated or malicious.

we don't have a car.
but live in a city with superb public transport and cycling paths. and we have 3 major supermarkets in walking distance.

tbh I would look a cycling, possibly a cargo bike if dc are small. and menbership in a car club so that you can hire a car ad-hoc if needed.

There are two things to discuss here, life without a car and life with your DH!

We went car free a few years ago. We use a combination of car club, buses, trains, walking, cycling and we spend less than when we had a car. We made the decision for environmental reasons. However - your location is a village so this has to be thought through carefully - I live somewhere well connected.

Your DH sounds both unrealistic and overbearing. I'd think seriously about that.

Electric car would defeat his argument if you can afford it. We now spend €3/day for an 100km commute.

So he's having complaints about everything whichever way you suggest doing it unless it's his way, most of these sacrifices will be yours/the DC to make and are unrealistic...is he trying to limit your life and keep it small? Now he doesn't have covid as an excuse to issue orders about what you can/can't do, he's using the car - he's already trying to manipulate you with this nonsense about how it'll be "your fault" if the car needs repairs because it's you who wants to keep it. So you want to keep the car, you know it's for the best with your family's lifestyle, but you're considering giving in to what he wants because you think it's easier than dealing with his moaning. The car isn't the problem. Do you want to spend your life being controlled like this? Keep the car and if he gives you any grief, ditch him instead.

The majority of the pollution from a car comes from tyres/brakes not exhaust, plus the carbon impact of the car itself.

They are an improvement on combustion engines of course, but the way we get clean and spacious cities is getting people out of cars altogether.

I have never driven & I don't use the bus, I just get taxis if I need to go anywhere beyond walking distance.

At one point I did try to cost up having a car & including MOT, insurance, breakdown, money for tires etc.. plus petrol & parking it worked out that it would have cost me more to have a car than to make the same amount of journeys as we do actually make by taxi.
That was assuming the purchase price of the car would be spread over 10 years so only 1/10 of the car purchase price counted against the years total costs to have it.

It just feels like you are paying more when you have to pay for each taxi, because people tend to think the cost of the journey is just the petrol cost.

On the rare occasions we go longer distance and have a cab bill of a couple of hundred each way it really stings, but still works out less over a year & my cab company give me discounts because I am a long time regular customer.

I've stopped keeping a record of it now because I've been doing it for years & I would no longer even be allowed to drive as my eyesight is not good enough.

It wouldn't be much cheaper for us to use buses over taxis & they are dreadful here.
That said, during Covid a lot of cab drivers quit when there was no work & they stayed in whatever new job they took, so it's harder to get a cab where I am now & you often have to wait longer.

I online shop, so food deliveries aren't a problem.
Sometimes I do get a cab to do a food shop, but very rarely as I find I don't impulse buy online food, but we come home with stuff we never eat if we go to the store.
A trip to the nearest shopping centre for us is £20-£25 on cabs, but it still works out less than a having a car on the road.
We only have to go for a stroll though & we get to the sea, or to a nature reserve, so we have entertainment that suits us on the doorstep.

When we lived very rurally, we did the same thing, but it's worth finding out if there are local cab companies & what their opening hours are.
My local cab company when we were living out in the middle of nowhere was actually based over ten miles away & they didn't work late (or too early, or Sundays or Bank Holidays) so you couldn't always get a cab no matter how much you were prepared to pay.

I think if you have to drive to work it probably is cheaper to run your own vehicle, so it's going to depend on your lifestyle & how often you use your car.

It is worth sitting down & working out ALL the costs of having a car before you look at how much it would cost to use cabs or buses/trains.
It's often more than people think.

That said @Wallywobbles we are considering an electric vehicle now trains are less reliable, but I think it's important to be honest about these things, really we need far fewer car journeys of all types.

In large part because traffic dominates and ruins public spaces.

Where we live, we couldn’t be without the car. The nearest small shop is a 3 mile round trip. Yes, it’s walkable but it’s a long bloody walk. The nearest big supermarket is a 10 mile round trip so no! We’d just be trapped in. As a kid, we didn’t get a car until I was about 13 and I remember the sense of freedom and how great it was not having to trudge everywhere in the rain. Somehow, my mum seemed a bit less miserable too!

We manage without them and it's in a very rural area. Annoying at times but get by OK but we live in the main community in the area and have a supermarket(also my work place), post office, docs, leisure centre and schools all in walking distance. On a low income, so got rid of the car when it needed replacing.

I can't drive (multiple lessons, just could not get the hang of it) but DH does. For day to day journeys we're fine, we're London suburbs so have most main amenities in easy walking distance, otherwise I can get a bus every 5 mins max from the end off my road or the station is under a mile away. Or I can generally get an Uber within 3 minutes. But we'd struggle for weekend trips and holidays without the car, especially as we like camping and outdoorsy stuff.

No way would we ditch the car even living here, and I wouldn't want to live in a village as a non driver, even with DH driving.

For myself I have eye issues, optically correct,tho brain to eye connections poor, the joy of Parkinson’s.
I live near a reasonable town, served by great bus service, and train station 10 min walk away, a small Lidl, a sainsburys, waitrose and Iceland nearby, an Aldi a small bus ride away
Given that if I had lived rurally, I would move, luckily early retirement, use buses when needed.
You need a car tho, bulk shopping easy online, not so easy for normal stuff

This

In London fine living in the country not fine . I don't actually have any public transport/ trains / taxi ranks near me so a car is a necessity .

Sorry, can't offer advice regarding public transport as I haven't used a bus for nearly 40 years. However! What's all this, "Not allowed" nonsense? Not allowed to do online shopping, not allowed to take DC on a bus, not allowed to go to the cinema etc. etc.

Who made him Mr. Boss? He sounds a bit of a control freak to me.

Keep the car and tell him to stuff his "Save the planet" ideology which is totally impractical for where you live. You don't need this level of crap in your life or - sorry, think I read your DC is a boy - do you want your son to grow up treating his future partner the same? Grow a spine and stand up to your pathetic husband. It's 2023 not 1953, (and I say that as a 67 year old.) If you genuinely fear your husband's reaction if you stood your ground then you need help from elsewhere too but sounds to me, from your op, that you just need to firmly remind him that marriage is an equal partnership and your views and opinions are of equal merit, (and less of the "Not allowed" crap.)

Works fine for me, but I don't live in a village. I live in a town (NOT London) with great bus services, 3 different buse routes go through the town to the 2 cities nearby and to the airport, they run 24 hours a day every few minutes. I don't holiday anywhere that I'd need a car for, and I live a 5 minute walk from a Tesco, Asda and Aldi so shopping is easy. I also work within walking distance from my home and DC's school is a 25 minute walk away. My doctor and dentist are also in the town within walking distance.

It really does depend on individual circumstances.

.... and when one of your DC becomes ill, and you desperately need a car ..... but no longer have one .....

Don't give up your one lifeline and shred of independence @FeetOnly - you really need that car, especially if you live in a village.

Ask not what life is like without a car, rather ask what life would be like without your dh.

Seriously you didn't take the dc on a bus because of covid and now you are supposed to lose the car and take them on a bus for long and circuitous routes?
Keep your car and when you are going on a day trip tell him you'll see him there and go in your car without him!

How old are the children? I have found that since my kids have got older it really helps to drive. To get them to activities that start at 4pm (so no time for public transport after school), to take them to competitions, to parties in random softplays, village halls etc.

We live rurally without a car and walk/ bus everywhere. We don’t have trains or online shopping available. I enjoy it. We have a 2 year old. It’s not for everyone but do able. Online shopping would be the dream!

This. Plus how near is their school? Will they need to change school in future and where will that be?

Does the bus run in the evenings?

I live in a medium sized town and we wouldn’t manage without a car due to the poor public transport. There is absolutely no way I would live in a rural village with no car.

Car — red herring
Husband — red flag

Kids are 11 (DD) and 13DS(ASD). DH thinks they're old enough to be getting themselves to activities and back on the bus. I'm a bit less certain as I'm not happy about DD having to wait 20 mins alone at the main station for a connection nor waiting at the bus stop to come back as about 4 stops past one of her activities is the red light district. There would probably be others waiting but I can't guarantee there would always be someone there.

@NerrSnerr DD would always be at least 4 minutes late for her activity, unless she could switch to the later group. That would mean she'd only be home at 830pm though which is a bit late for her.

Competitions might be an issue. I had to leave at 530 last weekend to get her to one. We'd occasionally have to stay the night, I think. If they run late we might have difficulty getting home. She hasn't done enough for me to know for certain if that's a normal occurrence though.

I do drive the scooter, although I don't feel terribly safe on it. I refuse to take the DC on it as I don't think I could hold the weight.

I do have a bike, we all do. But we live up a large hill! One of DD's activities which she goes to twice a week requires a large kit bag, so bike and scooter not possible.
Walking is about 25 mins to the city bus network. 45 mins to the city centre.
I'm not a super confident driver and am, maybe somewhat stupidly, worried I might lose it if I never have the opportunity to keep practicing.
IL's have recently moved 10 mins away, so supposing they're not off travelling somewhere, they could potentially give a lift to doctors etc. Or I'd have to call a taxi.

@FeetOnly is that the only activity she's ever going to do? What if they want to do something else?