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?

To get into town on the bus costs 1.75p single fare, or 13.20 for a weekly pass
To get into the town in the car, park up and walk the couple of streets costs in petrol 21p one way (it costs 1.64 per day for tax, insurance wear and tear)
To walk or cycle is free - it is a mile and a half

To travel on the train 15 miles is 4.75 return for one adult - then add on 2.45 for each child

To travel by car the 15 miles will cost me 4.20p plus the daily cost of running the car at 1.64

I am car dependent because of where I live but I'd argue against the accusation that I "chose" to be Car Dependent.

We moved here 15 years ago and chose this area because despite it's rural location, it had excellent PT links with both the nearest "Large" Town and City. Indeed we could "buy a pint of milk in the snow" as the village was well served with a shop.

Fast forward 15 years and the shop has gone and the PT links have been reduced significantly. That coupled with my Employer relocating to a smaller town 18 miles away leaves me totally dependent on my car.

I can still get to the Large City 12 miles away by bus - there is one there at 8.02am and another one at 9.35. the ones back are at 10.52 and 11.35

Cycling? - Too scared I'm afraid....the speed cars shoot along the rural lanes round here terrifies me

'scary you are wilfully misinterpreting what I say.

If you work and live in a city and then move to a rural location, in the process giving yourself a massive commute to your job in the city, you have been the architect of that situation.'

No I'm not. My dh's job is HM Forces, so he could be in one week, Plymouth, then up to Lincolnshire for a course, then to Northwood, then back to Cornwall. Not possible without a car. It's got nothing to do with choosing to live in the countryside and then commuting into a city - some people have very reactive jobs, so that if he got called at 0300 to go to sea, there wouldn't be adequate public transport to get him there fast enough whether we lived in Cornwall, the middle of Plymouth or central London.

Given the paucity of jobs now, I would think it's very difficult to get a job where you live. When I was looking for a teaching job, I knew from where I lived I could get to schools in 5 different towns with the car. I wasn't planning to sell my house and move to near where I worked as I don't like living where I teach for obvious reasons.

Quenelle there is one of "Those" near me...

My Mum and brother live in a rural village 10 miles out of a big city.

The Bus company have decided that the route that my Mum takes into the city on a daily basis to work is not profitable enough and so they are scrapping it - meaning the village will be completely cut off.

My Mum is going to have to buy a car to get to work.

I'm a bit of a lazy cow now I can drive . i didn;t drive until 6 years ago, and walked or cycled everywhere. Since passing my test I have become ridiculously reliant on my car. I used to drive to work (in the same town) because there was parking nearby. when I got my current job, my first thought was horror as it is in the city centre and I would have to cycle 2 miles there each way I'm so grateful for that now!!! Cycling has become a much bigger part of my way to travel...however, I am still in a state today because my car is being MOT'd and I won;t be able to use it till later! I may have to walk to dd school (about a mile) to collect her . I am of course being a bit sarcastic here, but I am totally aware of my failings when it comes to using my car for stupid unecessary journeys.

scary I didn't mean you personally. I was referring to a certain pattern of commuting and the creating dormitory villages, consisting of wealthy urban workers all merrily pointing their beamers towards the city and then complaining about the difficulty of the situation they had engineered. It is the same mentality as those people who buy
Gas Guzzling cars that are much bigger than they need and then complain how much it costs to fill up.

Ii don't think. I can be any clearer, either I am being particularly opaque or you are reading what you want to read.

(bangs head off desk in frustration and gives up out of exasperation)

You can't really blame this on individuals - it's part of a set of social trends.

So, for example, supermarkets now site their stores out of town, so you have to drive to get to them, because they've put many of the local shops out of business.

Or, whereas once, children walked to the local school, the introduction of parental "choice" means that many children now go to school a few miles away.

Or, because in a lot of families both parents work, children are often dropped off to school by car by a parent on their way to work, because walking them there and then back again would make no sense.

Or, people have to drive to work because there are no jobs locally and they can't afford to live near their place of work.

Take my DH. He used to work in London, which meant he could catch the train in and walk the other end. But since he's worked out of London, he's needed a car, because that's the only way to get to work. And there aren't any suitable jobs near to where we live. We don't move nearer his workplace because who knows when he might get made redundant or need to change jobs again?

It's never quite as simple as people choosing to become reliant on their cars.

The thing is, places in really rural areas used to have public transport, and a comprehensive rail network.

Essentially, the problem has been that "public" transport has been privatised, and as Voidka says, routes are being pulled for no longer being "profitable", which never used to be the main point of PT, did it?

We are no longer passengers, we are customers. I have no choice which companiy's buses I use, and yet they call all the shots by deciding to only run the profit making routes.

It is isolating in many ways, including the sheer time being carless takes up.
From home to school to work takes me 1 hour and 20 mins. If I had a car, that would be more like 30 mins. This is because there is no bus to school, and it's a long walk.

My time is just as precious as a car owners, but I have to simply suck it up, because comprehensive bus routes would not be "profitable".

When i was kid in the 80's, the buses were council run, and there were many, many more routes. We didn't have a car, and never need one.
It just makes no sense to have crap subsidy and investment in PT, because the way things are now, nobody wins.

It's rubbish for people who want to drive to have all these people on the roads who really don't want to be there, rubbish for the bus companies when families decide it is just much cheaper to run a car, and rubbish for the bus users who are left, standing at bus stops for 40 mins, because what are they gonna do? They are totally at the mercy of a system that operates as though they are doing passengers a greta favour by existing at all, rather than being their raison d'etre.
And by system I mean FIRST BUSES. The cunts.

the school run traffic does irk me, send your kids to the local school and make them WALK there and back

I do, actually, think we have a casual reliance on the car which is always demonstrated when there's the possibility of a fuel strike. I also realise that there are many reasons why people need a car but we do seem to have developed a sense of entitlement about the right to drive and a general disinterest in looking at alternatives.

However, as someone who lives truly in the middle of nowhere (like several miles to the not overly frequent nearest public transport) DP and I worked out that if the worst came to the worst, if all we used the car for was to drive to our nearest station, a tank of fuel would last for over a month . And quite frankly, if petrol truly did become so unobtainable that this was necessary, the country would have fallen to pieces in all sorts of other ways too. Which would make the potential for being a bit late to work or being rather tired from walking or cycling, a very minor inconvenience in the greater scheme of things.

I always read these threads, and when people say "I cope without a car" I want to ask, "do you live in London or in a commuter town to London?" I managed for a couple of years in London without a car, then I got one (given by a family member getting rid of it) and I realised at one point I'd not actually moved it for 4 months.

However, there is a culture of using public transport in London that doesn't exist IME in other parts of the country (save for very central parts of cities). This culture of public transport has, to a certain extent, moved out with Londoners to commuter towns (but again, you wouldn't drive into London so if you've got to work there, you're going to look at places on the train route). I've also lived in a couple of other cities and have friends and family dotted all over the country, and it is really seen as public transport is the "poor man's choice" - it's not something you would chose to use if you can afford a car. If you have a car, you don't think to use public transport. (It can't just be in Stockport where buses are referred to as 'loser cruisers')

A good example is my mum, who lived a 5-10 minute walk to a train station that would give her a direct train to her local town centre, with trains every 15 minutes in the day (more at rush hour), a train journey that was quicker than driving and a ticket price that was cheaper than parking in the town centre car parks. She lived there for 20 years, I don't remember her ever once taking the train to go shopping, just didn't occur to her to do it, sadly, once I passed my driving test, if I could borrow her car, I did and didn't take the train - it took moving to London to see that attitude was madness.

If you want to get people out of cars, public transport has to be improved, that's accepted, however, public transport won't improve if people don't start using it, creating demand and complaining about specific routes/problems, and that will take a massive change in thinking about transport for most of the country.

I need a car to get to and from work.
I work a mere 11 miles away, but public transport ( because its rural) would take over 2 hours, and cost me far much more money.

With a car i also manage to leave dd i childcare for only 15 mins outside school time, without a car that would jump to 4 hours - again costing even more.

And thats just school trips.

Catch 22, innit, Lydia? Some villages around here have a regular bus service into town. It goes every Thursday. How do you persuade people that that's a practical alternative to running a car?

YANBU OP. This ludicrous panic-buying of petrol has made me realise just how dependent on my car I am, and I don't like it. We are semi-rural, and yes, we chose to live here because it's a lovely place to live. The children go to school 5 miles away (on a route that includes tiny rural lanes and the A20) so walking/cycling really is out of the question for 3 primary aged children.

I was day-dreaming on the way back from the school run yesterday. That if there was just no more petrol, no cars and lorries on the road, we could all cycle to school in safety. I would love it - it's only the danger from other motorists that stops me walking/cycling everywhere. :( I suppose that'll never happen though.

My dh has recently changed jobs which means he walks to the station and gets train to London - instead of driving into work. So that's good news - we have gone from a 2-car to a 1-car family.

Lydia - that's like my MIL. The bus into town stops literally outside her house, at the bottom of her drive, but she never gets it. I suggested she give the council back her free bus pass as she doesn't use it and she got quite shirty. Because occasionally, when she comes to stay with us, we get the bus somewhere.

As a Londoner who walks/gets public transport most of the time (though we do have a car that we use more now we're in the 'suburbs') I am baffled by the fact that living in the country means you have to drive everywhere. My brother and sister in law live in a village without pavements or a shop. So they can't even go for a walk. And if they want a pint of milk, they have to get in the car. I would hate that. What's the point of living in the country if you have to drive everywhere?

Also, if you rely on public transport, you make different choices in the first place, you don't apply for jobs that are impossible to get to on public transport, you don't live somewhere that's not walking distance to a train station or bus stop with good links, and/or walking distance to somewhere you can buy at least basic food.

Once people have cars, it makes living in further out places with poor local facilities an option, but once you've taken that option, it becomes impossible to live without a car, and moving house/job/DCs schools are hard to do.

YANBU
I would love to be less reliant on our cars. Before I started full time work last summer I walked several miles a day (quite happily) dropping kids off to all the different school/nursery runs. DH used to cycle the 4 miles to work. I'd catch bus to town when necessary e.g. for kids hospital appointments.

Then DHs work decided to post him to a different site - 28miles away - earliest bus to get there arrives at 11:30. He can (and sometimes does) cycle, but that is a massive time out of his day and he leaves before the DSs get up and arrives home after they are in bed. So not really practical everyday.

I drop the kids off as soon as school opens for breakfast club, then DS3 to nursery on my work campus. Even with a car I only just make it in on time - 10min drive. The bus takes 40mins (not taking into consideration the 20min walk from bus stop to work, or waiting 1hr from time dropped kids to school to catch bus), and we don't live in a majorly rural area (4miles to town on a direct bus route). Again there is no way I could get back from work by public transport to pick DSs up before after school club shuts.

Even if you smugly think you can cope fine without a car, sometimes life turns around and bites you anyway.

If I drove, I'd probably be just as reliant on cars as all the other drivers here. So I admit I am probably biased. But let me explain my bias - I don't drive because of an ideology. I don't drive out of circumstance - I just never learnt. I moved to London at 18, never had the money or the inclination, don't have a parking space for my current flat and couldn't afford to keep a car anyway.

But the negative aspect of being reliant on a car is not just a "lefty" thing (OMG, being a lefty is such a terrible thing!), and it's not just about the environment.

It's about reliance, all round, in every way. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a raving loon but: we humans, with capable bodies and stamina and endurance have become sedentary, sluggish beings that roll into a car, drive to work, roll into an office, sit in a chair all day long, roll back into a car, into our homes, and onto the couch all evening. Obviously I am not accounting for an "hour in the gym" but you get my gist.

All you drivers - if cars didn't exist, you'd find a way to get where you needed to. You would have strong legs, and employ the stamina and endurance that sets us apart from other mammals. You are not physically constrained by lack of transport. You are mentally constrained by not being able to see a life beyond that which the car gives you.

I fully expect to be roundly flamed for this post

LittleMissGreen,

I do realise how lucky I am not to need a car

betty, I applaud you. I also think it relates to time. For me, even if cars were faster than other options (which they're often not), the extra 10 minutes we spend gazing out of the window, or walking along thinking, isn't "lost" time. It's a really positive experience. There's so much pressure on us with time, that car driving can seem the only option if it saves us 5 minutes

What do non drivers if there's a serious medical emergency? call an ambulance!

nonsense, if it is a non urgent emergency (toddler with split lip) we, and others, take a taxi.
we have a car but the next a&e hasn't got any parking. the car is used for dh's commute which would be possible by pt, but that would be more expensive (if you only add fares not car insurance/tax) and take longer.

bettybat You're a Londoner you say?

Quenelle, I think the same could apply to most UK cities, I would have thought