How much of a necessity is having a car where you live?

[OneRealFinch]

Not very maybe at night more so

Essential, especially as I have 2 small kids. Also essential for my husband to get to work as it’s in another town. We couldn’t afford to live in the same town as his office.

I also am not interested in spending 3 times as long on my work commute,’and it would also cause issues with nursery/school drop off.

Completely unnecessary which is one of the main reasons I live in London.

For the people who can’t get anywhere without a car, does it get more complicated when you have teenagers who are old enough to want to be out late with their friends but not old enough to be driving themselves?

Pretty necessary. I never drive into the city because the train service is excellent and I live a short walk from the station, but if I'm going in any other direction I drive (or walk if to the closest supermarket, library, post office, etc).

Not a necessity because I live in outer London.
Ask the same question of my neighbours and many would say a total necessity, with seemingly every 17+ year old having their own!
No wonder the planet is doomed.

Absolutely essential where I am. Rural area with infrequent buses, even those stop before 6pm, and nothing runs on Sunday or bank holidays.
I need a car to get to work [ 7 miles along rural, unlit roads each way ].

Nearest train station is 5 miles away, £15 for a taxi.

It's totally not a necessity.
We live in a market town with loads of amenities and we're a 15-20 minute walk from anything we want to do. I get the train to work for the couple of days I go into the office.
But I have a car because I don't have the time, during the working week, to spend 20 minutes walking somewhere and 20 minutes back.
I also have to drive to regular client meetings all over the place.

not at all (but I have one for convenience and longer journeys, holidays etc)

Absolutely necessary as public transport around here is absolute crap. A bus every two hours during the day, last evening bus 7pm ish, only 3 buses all day on a Sunday.

Schools put on special buses as there are no service buses to cover school times which is fine for them but no help for everyone else.

Even the infrequent public service buses often don’t run. May as well not bother as everyone drives or takes taxis because they’re so infrequent and unreliable. Seeing someone at a bus stop is very rare!

the buses have just improved
i was carless for 5 years,
but the last bus was quite early
it was very hard for my dd, lifts etc.,
i would be limited in where i work - where i currently work would be difficult. but the buses are running later now, which is good

Necessary. There is an hourly bus through the core of a week day to a local town. No sunday bus. Bus takes about three times as long as the same journey by car. Last bus at 5pm so you wouldn’t be able to get home from town on an average 9-5 job and no scope for getting to work outside of about a 9-4 day. To get further than town you would need multiple buses and none have good connections. The bus gets in about 5min after the next one has left etc. No direct buses to other local towns.

Where I live it depends on where you want to get to and when you want to get there!

Necessary?? No, probably not. I can walk to a supermarket, kids could walk to school. Other stuff could be delivered online.

Technically, I can get public transport to work - buy it takes over 2 hours. DH works from home.

What we'd loose is the kids after school activities, access to a swimming pool, meeting up with friends, my income.

So, we could survive, but it would be pretty boring, essential only, style living.

Absolutely essential. I live semi-rurally in a small town in the middle of 3 large towns at least 25 mins away each & nearest city at least 30 mins away. There is public transport, a small bus interchange & train station.
However I need a car in order to do my job as I travel between various addresses on any given working day & it would be too time consuming to do this on public transport.
In addition I enjoy the independence & freedom of having my own car. I have no desire to use public transport as my car is my personal space where I can play my own music & go wherever I need.

There is no bus and the only amenities we have is a postbox and defibrillator

I think you could probably cycle to the next village, that would take maybe 15/20 minutes and there is a corner shop there

We could manage without a car. We have two buses minutes away and easy access to shops, tube station and overground but I wouldn’t be able to:
get to my or any other gym
get to my art class.
most importantly we wouldn’t be able to pick our GD up from school or visit DS and his family.

Necessary where we live, infrequent bus service and that's if they turn up. I couldn't drive before we moved here, didn't need to as I had always lived somewhere with good transport links.

Absolutely essential. We live remotely (albeit not as remotely as some). 3 miles to the nearest shop, 7 miles to the village where our schools are, 10 miles to the nearest hospital. All our roads are country lanes with very few paths around.

Our bus options our limited and the nearest train is in the city where the hospital is.

We live in a northern city so rarely need to use our old car, just use ours once a week for swimming. But to visit elderly relatives just 50 mins away by car across the Pennines takes 3-4 hours by public transport

Difficult but not essential. One bus an hour and I can cycle most places (I have an e-bike). Makes our children’s lives better, being able to drive them places.

We could just about do a 1 car house hold, but not no car. However, driving doesn’t cost us much-we drive old cars that are all paid off and cheap to maintain.

Pretty much this.

We have one bus that runs every 2 hours, this doesn't take you to the city, just to two of the nearest towns. I wouldn't be able to get to work by bus and ds wouldn't be able to get to school by bus, it would take an hour to walk to them both.

Pretty essential. We live in a village. There is a station, so we can get to the coast and into London, but it would be impossible to get to the local town, to kids school etc. other than the school bus, there is only two service buses per day.

I don't have one, London zone 2, 5min walk to public transport.
And it's £150 a month to rent a parking space where I live, which I'm far too tight fisted to contemplate.

See...people just don't care. What climate emergency? What air pollution killing children?? Who cares?

Not a necessity at all and I don't have a car and can't drive. I live in a medium size town in between 2 medium size cities. There are 4 different bus services, one that goes around the town and estates to the big supermarkets, I don't use that one but it great for pensioners to do their shopping. Another one that goes to a different town nearby. And 2 that run 24 hours a day, one that runs from one city to the other and one goes to the nearest airport and Aldi distribution centre where a lot of local people work. These 2 buses run very regularly. There is also a train station in the town.

NOT in London.