to expect to be able to afford to get to work

[hissymissy]

The local news depressed me tonight. Fuel prices are set to go up, possibly as much as £2 a litre. How are we expected to get to work? Public transport here is a joke, there are very few jobs around where I live, and even if I could afford the cost of removals, there are no affordable rents in the town where I work.

I do car share, but that could change as one of the people I share with is leaving next year and the other is regularly off work sick.

I think I will lose it if the government puts up fuel duty yet again. The current rise in the cost of living is totally unsustainable.

I would just like to add that while I agree that society needs to change so that we are less reliant on private (petrol) vehicles, I do see why some people feel they need a car for work.

I cycle (and will do so even more now because I'm going to get rid of the car) but when the dcs were younger I wouldn't have had time to be there for the end of school without my car. I also would have been dropping them off earlier than was permitted by the school.

Don't flame me - I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

No sympathy for anyone who has to travel 8 miles or less to work ? My work is 6 miles away and I have 30 mins to get there after dropping off the children. 2 miles or 3 each way maybe but up to 8 miles? To walk 8 miles would take a couple of hours!

My husband travels a lot with his job, he has a company car and up until a month ago was considered based at home so got paid mileage for all his travel (not much only 12p a mile)
However they have changed the policy in line with government guidelines and now he is based at his nearest place which is 50 miles away!
So where ever he goes he pays the first 100 miles of the journey.
He has a car that does 50 mpg but even so it costs him at least £14 to go to work and back every day.

He got a pay rise at the end of january but that's been wiped out and more by the cost of fuel :(

coalition I have the feeling their soloution would be to 'delete' me, the way they have deleted hundreds of others in the last few months.

I didnt learn to drive till I was 36 and never dreamt of having two cars. Life got in the way though and OH has MS so cannot manage without his. Luckily (for now) he doesnt have to tax it but the petrol is not free.

My car is little and cheap to run. I do a lot of dashing about due to being a carer for OH and DS so I do use it for short trips, something I never thought I would do.

We do become overeliant on our cars, I wouldnt argue with that at all. Its gone beyond that now with petrol being SO expensive. Its getting to the point where essential use is becoming difficult.

I can use my car less and I will. But there is nothing I can do about work. It would be far better for them to have a 'pool' car that could be booked for visits. But they would never sort that out. Piss up and brewery spring to mind

YANBU. How far is your commute?

Get a little scooter?

cycle nikki

agree with the earlier poster talking about having to cut back on essentials. We stopped all "luxuries" a long time ago - no cinema, theatre, takeaways, eating out etc etc. But as the priority is keeping us both in work, we are now cutting back on essentials so that we can keep affording the petrol to get to work. Heating is only on for half an hour in the morning and an hour or two in the evening if very cold, have a prescription for new glasses but can't afford to get them despite deteriorating eyesight, no dental work getting done for same reason,rarely buy red meat now unless out of bargain bin and can't remember last time bought fresh fish. All clothes from charity shops.
And we both WORK ffs!!

I can catch a bus into town with my son. A return costs about the same as the trip would in diesel usage. May as well take the car. If the buses were more regular than once an hour, and cost half the price, I would consider it.

The trip to work would be a bus to town, a train to the town I work around, A bus from the train station to work. It ain't happenin'

I would like to live in this utopia which allows me to change house, job or car at will to suit circumstance. Where is it please?

Is it the same place as Hindsight?

"I understand entirely how difficult it must be for some, but I would like to echo the point that many have positively chosen to live in places that require a car, and then complain they need a car to get to work."

Of course, as others have pointed out, many people have to choose between affordable housing or affordable transport costs. They very often cannot have both.
If they had gone instead for higher housing costs, in case their fuel prices would increase significantly, would you then have pointed out how they had positively chosen to live in places with higher housing costs?
Whilst ideas such as flexi working or working from home are good in theory, they need the support of the employers and the final decision is that of the employers.

ha. no sympathy for anyone who works within 8 miles of their house.
Are you having a laugh???

I currently work out of your 8 mile radius. About 15 miles. Public transport is not a vaiable option at all. its rural and i could not possibly get my child to and from school and be at work and work enough hours. Impossible.

When i did work within your 8 mile radius, again, public transport would have been impossible. I would have had to go first in one direction, which a small child to drop off at nursery, then another direction to work.

I have no sympathy for people who say things like:

'The trip to work would be a bus to town, a train to the town I work around, A bus from the train station to work. It ain't happenin''

What do they think loads of people without a car do?? This was my life for several years, and the life of LOTS of people I worked with, as we worked in a very expensive town. We didn't moan about it, we knew it was like that when we took the job.

Also, one bus an hour is doable, you learn to like reading at bus stops or listening to music or make what you are doing take that long.

My DP and I need a car. We are a family on one income (2 preschoolers) so I stay at home. DP can't get the bus to work (30 miles away) as it doesn't fit around shifts(NHS worker). We need a car without a doubt.

Whoever said you can move or find a new employer is a bit daft IMO. We live near a major hospital but live in a town outside the city its in because the houses there cost twice what they do here. Unfortunately we could only get a mortgage for here. We pay £400 or more in deisel every single month and its outrageous. Even if DP can get the bus that costs about £60 a week so is cheaper, but not practical due to late/early shifts etc. The buses do not run as late as DP's shifts go, or as early as they start.

Our alternative? Send DP to live in hospital accomodation during work time and we see them at the weekend....yes I love this government, can you tell!

To the OP YANBU

Hubby was offered a job 50 miles away from where we lived at the time, so we moved.
2 years later he got a good job with a good pay rise, company car etc but back where we used to live. He did at that time get his personal fuel paid for.
Then he got promoted to a national role which means he has to travel as far as the Midlands and Scotland.
So basically where ever we live he will have to travel anyway, which is fair enough but why should he pay out of his own pocket mileage he's doing for the company?

well in a perfect world we would all skip to the office over the road from our homes while singing to the brids in the trees and pattign little bunnies on the head as we go...

but we dont live in a perfect world, and people have to go further a field to find work, not because they choose to, but because they have in order to feed their families

so telling hard working people that they live in the wrong place and should move closer to work/work closer to home is not helpful and a bit shite really isnt it?

Anyone read The Grapes of Wrath?

Can't help feeling we're seeing a bit of it on this thread.

jasper - I'm not quite sure it's the government. As of course I'm sure you're quite aware, due to two rounds of quantitive easing so far, sterling has been devalued against other currencies and of course the international trading currency for oil is $ and there is currently an "oil crisis" exacerbated by the problems in Libya and commodities speculation.

The government didn't make you live where you are.

Heheh No thanks Moomaa. The bus/train/bus combo is no cheaper than the fuel in fact, Had I not decided we are better off for me not to return to work after maternity leave, I would still prefer to drive to work.

Hmm Vinegar I live opposite a pub. Its the only business within walking distance to be. Perhaps I should combine work and play and become a landlord. I already occasionally practice skipping and singing as I wend my pissed self home on a rare night.

AlpinePony, perhaps not, but high taxation on fuel costs, a pay freeze on NHS workers, high taxes on food, VAT rises on everything MAKE fuel costs that much steeper. That is the governments doing.We are on the same income as post government but are expected to adhere to all cuts and rises on that income?

No of course they did not make me live where I live, but neither did I vote for them to be in power, but who is loosing out? its certainly not them!.....who pays their fuel bill?..expenses accounts I beleive...NHS staff for some reason, are denied that luxury.

I agree with those who live in rural areas; without a comprehensive public transport system, getting to work can be difficult. Sharing transport can be good if practical; colleagues sharing the drive to work or one person picking up several children for a school run.

For those in more urban areas things like cycling are definitely the way. Unless you are infirm you can reduce a several mile trip to a short ride; I'm unfit and commute 4 miles to work and back each day in a hilly city and it takes less than half an hour. With a luggage rack on the bike you can carry work clothes/shopping, and wet-wipes suffice for a quick clean up if you can't shower at your destination.

Obviously if you have 4 under 5s it would not be practical, but for one or two children who are too young to cycle themselves you can get childseats and trailers or cargo-style bikes with bucket seats attached. I regularly see toddlers in rear childseats and slightly older children on the "tag along" bikes that connect to the back of an adult's bike. There are also a few parents obviously doing the school run with 6-8 year olds cycling along with them on a cycle path and onto quiter roads; in towns and cities most routes can be planned without the need to go on major roads or navigate large junctions.

It would take me nearly an hour to walk to work, and £4 a day to get a bus that would still involve some walking at each end and that would be around 45 minutes. Cycling is quicker, cheaper, cleaner and lets me get some fresh air and exercise. Unless it is sheet ice or a blizzard then I go out in all weathers - rain doesn't dissolve people, and in mid-winter it can be quite bracing. I heartily recommend cycling wherever possible.

Pre government

ethelina, getting the bus does suck

Sometimes needs must and all that. I just think some people should be honest about whether they can't or don't want to. Also it doesn't work comparing the cost of the fuel against the cost of public transport as that doesn't take into account the costs of having a car and that your work give you a perk if you have free parking.

I'm afraid cycling really is the way forward. I do 12 miles each way on my bike to and from work every day, five days a week. It takes me an hour but is great for getting fresh air and exercise, and is cheap. I paid £100 for my bike about 6 years ago, second hand. I've once had to replace the tyres and bought a waterproof and two saddle bags. Total cost over the 6 years, about £250. When the DCs were younger, the eldest cycled and the youngest had a seat on the back of mine until she was sufficiently competent herself. It was just over a mile to school and we left their bikes there and they wheeled them home with the nanny at the end of the day. I have recently acquired a DS (long story!) who is 6 and he cycles 2 miles to and from school every day too.

Incidentally, I know it doesn't suit everyone, but I really can recommend it if possible!

ethelina the nearest local business to me is also a pub! why didnt i think of that one? yes yes i will become a land lady too, im not qualified and have no idea how to run a pub but getting a job closer to home is soooo easier and the answer to everyone on this threads problem and im sure they will hire me if i ask :-|[deadpan]

or i could cycle the 55 miles to work, so that would be 110 miles round trip on a bike

or i could just move over the road from my current job, on an industrial estate, i know i will pitch a tent!

the answer really is so simple