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 live in a small city but in a village on the outskirts. There’s regular public transport to the centre but not really anywhere else. Dh works in a city about 90 min drive away, public transport is not feasible for him. There are no jobs locally for him. I’m disabled and rely on my car to get about. I work in a small village about 30 min drive away with no accessible public transport.

We could not manage with less than two cars.
Dd and her bf still live with us (in the process of buying) both need cars for work

We have three vehicles. One for me one for DH and one for DS1 (who is due to do his test soon).

DH has a van-it has three seats, he needs the van for his business. I have a car, it has 5 seats. It fits the family in. DH would struggle to run his business out the back of my car, I would struggle to cart 3 kids around in a 3 seater van 🤣.

Both retired, have a car each. Independence.

I have the family car
DH has his wankmobile
We need two because we need to do things independently and have elderly parents who live 240m in one direction and 90 in the other.

DH also kept fils old car at his mothers for when he goes up on the train so he can take mil shopping and to appointments.

2 cars (one mine/dh the other ds’s) and then dh’s work van.

dh also used to have his own car but convinced him (before ds got his first car) it was a waste of money and we could surely organise ourselves around 2 (soon to be 3) vehicles - it probably would have been easier to convince him to cut off his left ear the way he went on about not having “his own” car.

We have 3,as 3 adults all working in different directions.

Our youngest is about to start learning, we’ve decided to change one car of our cars so my eldest can be insured on it and share it with her Dad. The youngest will use her old car (that we all currently share) Mine would be to expensive for either to be insured and is more reliable for the travel I have to do.

I would prefer to go down to 2, but it would mean my husband quite isolated as I’m in the office 3 days a week and leaving him without a car completely would be unfair.

We don't. I don't drive for my commute cause I work in the city centre or work from home, and my DP can't drive, so we have one car that is only used evenings and weekends. We're a low mileage family!

Growing up we had two cars though cause we lived rural and both parents needed them to get to work and get around. Once I was old enough to drive I shared my mums car while I was at home (not cause my dad was a dick about sharing his or anything...his was a pickup and more power than a new driver needs to use to get around. He did say if I got to 25 without any accidents he'd insure me on his pickup too, and he kept that promise!)

We have 2. DH works 50 minutes south. I work 30 minutes north. We live in the countryside where there is hardly any public transport. It's another world to somewhere like London. It's an hour's round trip to a supermarket, and that's before you factor in the time actually doing your shopping. No Ubers, no Deliveroo, no take aways, kids' activities scattered over a huge radius. We need 2 cars, as will just about anyone who buys one of the fifty squillion new houses they are inexplicably building in my village in the middle of nowhere.

We have three. One Landrover seven seater that fits everyone or if we need to shift stuff, and then two four/five seaters so we both have a runaround for getting to work and day to day use. One car would not work for us as we live in the middle of nowhere, so whoever was left in wouldn't even be able to get a pint of milk without access to a car.

We have 3 cars. Need one each to get to work and for independence. Live in a rural location with a bus once a week. One is a luxury car for comfort and long journeys. One is an average small car which is easy to park. One is an old banger which is a handy spare vehicle, and available for adult children to 'borrow'.

We live rurally and have 2 cars. As we both have a generous wfh policy there are many days when both stay on the drive. However we have enough days where we need two. We have one good car and one 11yr old runaround. When that gives up the ghost we‘ll try and use the village car sharing and DH‘s pedelec if we both need a vehicle.

We have two. DH works shifts, so that impacts the school run. The school run is 2 x 25 mile round trips a day.

It's just practicality. We generally have one workhorse car that's big enough to get all the camping gear in, and a little run around. The long term plan is that DD will have our current run around when she passes her test, at which point DH and I will be retired and will buy a car which will last at us least 10 years. We're not fussed about cars, but would struggle without one at the moment.

Why? Just curious why you think that.

Why would you not need one if you dont go to work? When I was a SAHM I used my car more often than I do now - to take DC to places. We would be a lot more limited if we were relying on public transport.

You get that most people don't live in central London, right?

We live in a village with no public transport so driving is essential - as are 2 cars for 2 adults who need to be in 2 places at once!

We have two between us, because we still regard ourselves as being two independent people, that happen to be in love with each other.
We might also soon own a van too, so maybe one of the cars will go then, as it won’t be necessary.
Fortunately our cars are of a type that are gaining in value…. So maybe we aren’t as mad as we might seem.

It’s not just for work, I couldn’t imagine not having my own car and being able to go wherever I please. We live in a town with crap public transport though.

Agreed.👍

It's because we like to collect huge chunks of metal.

There are four adults at home and none of us has a car. Public transport is good and it’s very expensive and generally troublesome to own a car.

Because I don’t live in central London and in the vast majority of the rest of the UK public transport is crap.
But anyone who lives in central London seems to forget the rest of the Uk exists

No we have one, I can't drive. We got our family car when our DC1 was about 2, about 1.5 years after DH passed his driving test. Fairly recently I was actually seriously thinking of selling it tbh because we could sell it for more than we paid with the increased cost of secondhand cars and save a load of money on insurance, road tax, petrol, maintenance etc. But ultimately it would make our lives more difficult to do that particularly for DH who does the lions share of kids drops/collections pre/post work which would take much much longer without the car. As a family of 5 we don't use it much though, probably once a week on average but often less. We are lucky we live in a great location where we can walk to shops, close relatives, loads of parks, loads of playgroups, multiple children's centres, multiple bus stops, swimming pool, all sorts. I get the bus to and from work.

Zov would love us then. We've got 6. A campervan, car for me, car for each DD, DH's own pick up truck and DH's work pickup truck.

We only had 2, the van and DH work truck up until 3 years ago, then they multiplied 😅

We live on a farm before anyone gives birth in sheer horror.

We have two cars as we both need a car for work and to take children to their activities as they often clash. Before we had kids we had about 2 years where we had one car as my husband could walk to work.

We have 4. All needed for work and social lives.