to think that the news is demonstrating our over-reliance on cars

[Bennifer]

I was watching the news this morning watching the petrol queues, I saw a mum on TV talking about how she needed the car to pick the children up from school. Then there was a story about Nottingham charging people to park at their place of work. As the reporter was talking about this on the streets of Nottingham, there was a stream of traffic behind him, I didn't see a cyclist or a bus.

I just think we've got ourselves into such a pickle over transport policy where so, so many people are dependent on their car to get around, and it's lunacy. I know we all have different circumstances, so I'm not going to judge individuals, but as a society, it just seems crazy. AIBU?

yanbu

We have 2 very cheap to run cars - low tax and we fill up every 3 weeks. I don't use public transport but I also don't use the car when I don't need to. I get food shopping delivered and out of term time we will go weeks without using it.

However, I absolutely rely on the convenience of it - if I need it, it's there. I got my cat to the vets in the next town at 11 the other night - an emergency that I'd had to have a taxi for otherwise - and it would have cost me £25 to get there and as it was much later when I got out the vets it would have cot much more.

If I'm going out in London at night I will drive there and park in an expensive car park right in the west end - cost me £17 to park last time - still cheaper than if I'd taken the train - and I'd have had to leave by midnight on the last train.

YANBU

I do have a car but I don't use it all the time and if I had no petrol for a week or so it wouldn't actually make a huge difference, I could manage just fine. I walk the children to school and then walk to work. I can also walk to the supermaket if I want.

I am in London though so I can get everywhere I need by bus if neccessary, not that I actually do go by bus much.

It must be more difficult if you live somewhere isolated though, if school, work, shops etc. are miles away so I would probably feel different under those circumstances

I think many people have become very reliant on their cars, and the thought of being without them is just too much to bear.
This whole petrol panic is proof of this.

Of course there are lots of people who would struggle without a car for many different reasons, but there are lots that would manage just fine.

Lots of drivers couldn't contemplate catching a bus anywhere.
My neighbour was in tears, (not an exaggeration) when her car was in for a service. She was worried how she was going to get to work.
The bus stop is literally outside the house, and stops directly outside her place of work!
I'm sure there isn't this stigma in other countries of public transport.
YANBU

I totally agree with you. Unless you live somewhere really remote or work miles from home (and where there are no PT links) it isn't essential to drive. We are lucky in that all the things we have to do are within walking distance. That isn't be accident - we made a lot of choices over the years so that we can live that way - I find driving quite stressful and when you have a succession of ancient bangers you learn not to rely on them too much!

I do drive to work because I need to drop DS2 at school on the way and I can't do both in the right timeframe but if push came to shove I'd manage it - get to work late, ask someone else to take him in, and once he goes to secondary I will be walking every day. But that's the whole point - if I said I had to drive to work, I'd be lying because I don't have to - I choose to be cause it's convenient. I think that vast majority of drivers would say the same if forced to at gun point ! And why not, it's a free market society so if you choose to spend all your money on petrol you don't need that's up to you. But when that supply dries up or threatens to do so (for whatever reason) you need to rethink that sort of attitude.

Worra

I don't have a car or a license since moving to the UK from the US. My husband has never driven a car in his life.

We have deliberately centred our lives around an area with excellent bus/train service.

There are shops in walking distance or about a 20 minute bus ride away. Our son will, hopefully, be attending a pre-school and primary about 1.5 miles away with no bus, but he's been walking at least that far as long as he's been walking, so it isn't an issue to walk him there.

I do take taxis when necessary, i.e. to one of my clients on occasion, because that location doesn't have decent bus service.

As for cost...my husband and my bus tickets come to £1,488 a year. I don't have my taxi figures in front of me, but maybe £240 a year?

Much cheaper than owning a car.

We are too reliant on them but I think if you work and have children you usually have time constraints that mean you would be late for work if you had to drop kids off then wait for bus. It also depends where you work as even if on a bus route you may have to change more than once to get there meaning your journey could take over an hour on buses but 10 minutes in a car.

Buses are also very expensive, for a single journey up the road (2 miles if that) for 2 adults and a child it cost us £5.60.

I didn't drive when the children were younger and we lived close to the town centre and I tended to walk everywhere but I was a SAHM in the day so didn't have any particular time contraints. My husband would drop me at work in the evening and someone from work would drop me off (I paid them for this).

If we didn't have a car I don't think we would ever see my husband's family who live 400 miles away as to get a plane or train there as a family of 4 would cost over £500 pounds.

A lot of people live rurally in this country, some of those do not have a bus service or train. Lots of city dwellers don't have cars do they? That's what I thought!

t would take several days for my husband to get to work using public transport (due to the number of changes required), compared with 50 mins by car. what do you suggest as a solution?

Because you have chosen to organise your life around around having a car there probably isn't one. I haven't done so and have adjusted my residence/work accordingly.

If you chose to live in an isolated location and/or a distance from where you work then I'm afraid you'll have to pay the high costs of fuel

OP YANBU.

There are often excellent reasons for having and using a car but I think it's an indisputable truth that many (not all) but many car journyes are unnecessary.

I often find it ironic that some people drive absolutely everywhere without ever walking anywhere and then drive to the gym for an hour's exercise. It's all gone upside down.

Drivers often shun public transport having not tried it for years or out of the fear "there won't be room" or "the bus will be late" or because of the cost.

Another irony is that some drivers scoff at the price of public transport yet not at the eye watering cost of learning to drive, owning, insuring and running a car.

I think we have been brainwashed into thinking we MUST drive and MoreBeta lists some very valid reasons about why more people have to now, but it's very sad.

It's amazing what you miss from a car that you see on a walk.

YANBU, it is pathetic. I have never owned a car, and I still manage to get my kids to school/nursery, amazingly, and get to work when I had a paid job. It's perfectly possible to live where there is public transport (living in pretty rural areas is a luxury, not needed by anyone except farmers who presumably don't need to drive to work). See also the other thread about someone outraged that it costs her something to park her car at a playpark- apparently they can't go by public transport because omg it's 2 buses. People just don't bother with cycling or walking, both of which are free, and I don't buy the 'public transport is so expensive' line- if I can afford it on income support i.e. below minimum wage then so can everyone else. People need to just realise that they aren't entitled for everything to be really easy and convenient all the time, and that they don't have a right to pump the atmosphere full of crap just to cut 15 mins off their school run/commute.

Well said Wibbly.

Some people are so deeply embedded into the habit of driving that they literally cannot imagine another way of getting places.

I don't live in a particularly rural area and if I worked on a bus route I'd be ok, although I'd still have to fins a way of taking the dcs to nursery first.

As it is, I work 11 miles away, over the border in England. THe dc's nursery doesn't open until 745; I have to be in work by 8-15/830. I can do it by car, but it would take (not counting dropping kids off) 2 buses and 3 ten minute walks to get to work. Can't even think what time I'd have to leave the house. Dh works 13 miles away in the opposite direction. If buses actually ran that early, he would have to take 2 buses.

I do lots of walking at the moment; but I'm on mat leave and have all the time in the world.

And 2 buses isn't ten minutes ride here and ten minutes ride there; it's half an hour to an hour on one, then half an hour on the other.

buses are also very expensive, for a single journey up the road (2 miles if that) for 2 adults and a child it cost us £5.60

Most bus companies charge a flat fare, so short journeys will be pricey.

If it is only two miles why are you using any form of transport than your feet? An adult can walk 2 miles in about half an hour. So unless you have a disability there is no need to pay anything.

Gasp! Not two buses!!!

My husband takes two buses or a bus and a train every day. It's really not the end of the world.

Crosspost Astr0naut.

It takes my husband about an hour on his two buses. Still not a big deal.

And, yes, if it's within two miles, we walk.

Incidentally, I grew up on a farm so I do recognise that people who work in the countryside need a car - but most people work in an office in or near a town and choose to live out in the countryside or miles form a bus or train without thinking about it.

The worst part of it is old people who become dependent on the car. My FIL just had the car keys taken off him by MIL. He is too dangerous. He has no need of a car. They live just 1 minte walk form a bus stop that goes direct into the centre of a big city and drops right at the mainline rail station. They can easily get a taxi for an occassional inconvenient journey.

My parents live in the countryside and totally dependent on car. My Dad is now finding it difficult to drive and Mum can't drive at all. I worry a lot about that issue. They wil be totally isolated. Mum is in a panic over it and has started shopping online just in case Dad has to go into hospital again.

Bu that's what I was saying, two buses (og god, we're all going to get hung up on two buses now, aren't we?) wouldn't be just an hour, with leaving the house and waiting etc. The car takes 20 minutes.

Besides, it's a moot point where I live because the buses don't start until 630, which wouldn't be early enough to get to work on time.

Astronaut, did you make positive choices to be so car dependent or was your DH relocated, etc?

I work a long way from home - my choice, I know. It is technically possible to get there by rail, but my local station timetable is not one that is set up for people getting to work at odd times (shifts), or at any time really. Plus, I live in the countryside, and would have to drive to the station and pay for parking. The bus service here is not geared up for the needs of working people - it appears to be mainly for the benefit of pensioners, and just about manages to get secondary school kids to school.

Outside major cities, public transport after about 10:30pm is virtually non-existent, which makes it impractical for people going out who might use it if they want a drink.

When I lived in a city, I did get the train quite often, but was at the mercy of delays, which were frequent. I know you can get caught in traffic in the car, but at least you can turn round and go another way in a lot of cases.

with the exception of thosevin remote areas, the public transport is crap argument is often trited out by car owners who haven't used public transport in years.

I live in a city, I use public transport nearly every day, I have a car. Public Transport is definitely overpriced and crap.

Bennifer, that's just the way it is round here. It was even worse where I grew up. I live in North Wales and unless you work and live on a bus route, it;s crap. Our neighbour gets a bus, but he works on a local industrial estate, so there's a shuttle bus. If you live in or around CHester and work there, then it's fine, but the further out you go, the worse it gets.

We used to live closer to dh's work, but we rented then. Buying a house meant we had to move further out, to a cheaper area. Still wouldn't have helped me though.

working a long way from home is not necessarily a choice - there aren't always jobs in a particular skill-set locally, especially if you are specialised. i work from home but sometimes have to attend meetings/shows and doing this via public transport would turn a 3 hour trip into an overnight stay.

if public transport is so poor in your area you really don't have a choice. we live in a small town, but buses are awful(as themallclanger says - don't go often enough, to the places you need to travel too and start too late, finish too early) and the nearest train station is 15 miles away

anyone moaning about people who use their cars too much obviously lives in a totally different environment to us

'It's perfectly possible to live where there is public transport (living in pretty rural areas is a luxury, not needed by anyone except farmers who presumably don't need to drive to work).'

What a stupid comment. The countryside needs people to live in it, otherwise it wouldn't function. It's not a theme park, it's a working area and lived and worked in by all sorts of people who don't want to live in overcrowded and unpleasant towns and cities. Farmers don't exist in isolation..their kids need schools. Farmers need vets who are nearby, not miles away. They need feed stores and abbatoirs and the people who staff those may like to live near them, in the pretty rural areas. The UK is overpopulated for the amount of housing stcok it has. If you'd like us all to move into towns then fine, but be prepared for housing costs to go through the roof and for your precious infrastructure to crumble (especially public transport) with the additional usage by all those moving in from the rural communities.

If we moved to the town where I work, I could walk to work, DS could walk to school, DH could take his scooter to work and we would run just one car for transporting DH's music equipment around at weekends and family outings and holidays.

Even though housing is so much more expensive in the town where I work, we would be better off because we wouldn't have the motoring costs.

If we could only sell our house, in an out of town development that has just one lower school, no nursery before 3yo, few childminders, no shops, no pubs, no churches, no train station...