Do you have two cars in your family? And if so, why?

[Homeiswherethedogsare]

Would love my own car one day once I get over fear of driving (another topic) but realise it woukd be a waste of money as I work in central London and don’t need it much apart from the odd days in the weekend.
DH uses the car every day to go to work.
Curious to know, do most families have multiple cars and if so why?
We don’t have a big budget for cars so maybe it would be better to have one nicer one than 2 old and average?

We have two cars despite being retired but one is DH's classic so is usually off road for the winter.
We have always had at least 2 daily drivers as no public transport to our jobs and have often had half a dozen on the drive at various points and for various reasons.
I had a hatchback for work, a sporty number for sunny days and a towing vehicle for weekend camping for a few years.
I have never spent more than £10k on a car but DS is a mechanic so I don't have to worry about anything going wrong.

So we can both get to work, DH works here there and everywhere and we live semi rural so no public transport to speak of.

We have two as we live rurally and it’s not possible to get public transport to where we work. I also work away so partner would be stranded whilst I was doing that if only had one car. Can see why a car could be more hindrance than help in a city though .

We have two...I need mine to get to work. DH WFH or goes to the office via train but he often needs to do the school run while im at work. It makes life so much easier

We have 4, DH and 2 adult dc use theirs for work. I have a run around that mainly sits on the drive. Public transport isn't great here

Yes two cars, as sometimes we both need to be in different places

So we can both get to work.

Mine is a 20 min drive - or 15 mins walking, 3 busses and another 15 min walk, taking 2 hours.

DH's place actually put on job adverts that access to a car is desirable due to a lack of public transport options.

So we can both get to work and both get to our elderly parents . It would take me 6 hours and around £130 by train. FiL also lives rurally but in the opposite direction with a ferry journey on top. No other family support available.

I didn’t when I lived with exh in the city, in fact we carried on sharing a car after splitting up, but I do now as I live in a small town and my now dh worked the opposite direction and no public transport was available to either. As it happens he’s now retired and a bus service starts next month that stops close to my house and my work so when one of the cars (his!) gives up the ghost, it’s old, we will have one car though he has motorbikes so will cope!

Yes, because we often have to be in different places at the same time, which surely is obvious.

For example, I used to commute into work on the 6am train and not get home until 7:30pm. If we only had one car, dh wouldn’t have been able to get dc to school (2 hour walk) and nursery (another 2 hour walk in a different direction) or to work (20 minute drive so he wouldn’t get there in time to turn around and come home again to do the school run 😂). No public transport where we live. Okay, well, there is some, but it’s like Tuesday and Thursday 10am returning at 4pm from the nearest town (which is not even the direction we need to go).

Or once or twice a week, Dh is 2 hours away for work. On those days, I need to get dc to two different schools and then dropped off to activities at 4:30 and 5:30 and collected again at 7pm and 9pm. Again no public transport. We don’t have taxis out here either really, but if we did, would easily cost £100 a day. I also have cancer and need to make frequent trips to hospital, which is an hour away. If I couldn’t drive myself in my own car, it would mean at least 4 hours a day of driving for Dh to drop me off and pick me up around the school run (never mind him actually going to work!).

We simply live too rurally and are too busy for one car. The only couple I know who share a car live in a London suburb and worked for the same company, so commuted together, and were just unusually attached to each other such that they went everywhere in tandem. Would drive me nuts following dh around every day.

There is always shock and horror from those in London and the surrounding area that buses & trains are extortionately priced and liable to be cancelled. That's if there is even a bus service or a railway station nearby.

We have a car each because we work in different directions and both have busy lives. I don’t want to be sharing a car with him and having to wait for him to get home before I can go out.

Because our public sector employers insist that we bring cars to work everyday. I'd be thrilled if either of our employers offered the use of pool cars, but they'd rather we subsidise them instead.

Only since our children learned to drive. They are not allowed to drive my car as bought through work EV scheme. Until then DH and I managed fine with just one car. We live in a village, but it has a station and we take the train to work. There were occasions when the kids were younger and doing activities that they needed driving to when it was slightly inconvenient, but we always managed with lift-shares etc. I felt it was good to be encouraged to try to find a way to use the car less. We don't use our car all that much and sometimes wonder if we should give it up altogether at some point as the cost is quite high for the amount we use it. If we lived in a city we could probably use some kind of car-share scheme, but here it would need to be an informal arrangements.

I've always thought of the car as a household item rather than an individual item.

Why you can only drive one at once so there would be no green benefit

Each child has one (3) I have one, DH has one and we have 2 large 4x4’s as we need them in winter to get out if it snows and we need them for the farm. We live in the middle of nowhere, there’s no bus service within walking distance and no taxis either. It was our choice to live here, the children needed their independence and it was a priority for them to drive at 17. I don’t like sharing my car and DH likes completely different cars from me so sharing would never have worked.

In your case it would seem pretty silly to have two cars

DH has a works vehicle which he uses every day to get to work (an hour away) or to meetings round the country. I'm not allowed to drive this vehicle, it's him only.

I work at home or get train to work but need car to get DD to activities. Also just so I can get to the places I want to go whenever I went to go without having to mess around with public transport. I couldn't drive for a month recently and found it a right pain - a 10 minute car journey took 40 mins by walk and bus. A 45 min car journey to see Mum would take 90 minutes (15 min walk, 2 trains and a bus)

Why?
We have four vehicles between two adults, but they have different purposes.
Both of us have cars for work/commuting etc
Then we have one 4x4 for towing and a smaller truck that's a bit rough and ready for messy work.
Having more doesn't increase the mileage we do, but its far better to drive my 'work' hybrid on a long motorway drive than the big 4x4

We currently have two because we need them to manage work and the school drop off. My commute doesn’t allow for dropping off at breakfast club on the way.

I’m switching to a more WFH role so we will get rid of the second car. But if we could afford to keep it, we would as we often want the option to each have a car available for socialising etc.

I do, but I often wonder whether it’s actually worth it. We both work from home, the only time we really need more than 1 is sports at the weekend as have 3 kids but we can usually manage.

If one of the cars wasn’t already 15 years old I would probably have sold it. As it happens it’s still running well so we might as well keep it until it isn’t. Then I think we will move to 1

We could manage on one car between the 2 of us as my husband works either from home or abroad. But, I don’t want to drive his massive car if I don’t have to. I have a sporty little mini and I love it - so easy to park and fun to drive. I have had my own car since I was 17. Not prepared to start sharing one yet. If our kids are both here, there are 4 cars on the drive.

We had 2 until last year. We now have one - and are thinking of getting another small one for when dc’s start driving.

I WFH or train it to london. I seldom need my car - it’s Sod’s Law that when I need it clashes with the times DH does. We used to hire but spent too much time dropping off / collecting them.

We have always owned multiple vehicles and it was only with approaching retirement and a house move that we decided to reduce the number.

My car (modern hatchback), my classic MG, my OH's classic Land Rover plus our motorcycles and of course our Moho.
Plenty of garage space at our old house, not one vehicle was ever parked on the road. Didn't even cost huge amounts to keep them on the road as road tax was cheap/free and classic vehicles attract very reasonable insurance premiums.

Now we are down to a single car, motorcycle & Moho.

Me toooo 😜