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?

Oh the irony of morebeta's kids taking a taxi to school! 'All these silly people so reliant on their cars - we don't have one, we just use someone else's!'

Are you and betty just talking about people who live in cities now? Because I am not mentally constrained by not being able to see a life beyond that which the car gives me, I just don't live in a city.

Bettybat- not all of us go to one destination and then sit there all day, in sociable hours. Not being able to drive, in some cities would make you unemployed, because of limited job options.

taxi's run on LPG though so is it reliant on motors or reliant on petrol?

shrug

What we do if there was no concept of personal car ownership? Buses, taxis, lorries etc still for industry. But no personal cars?

You would make life work for you.

YANBU. Me and DH share a car so when he is at work we walk everywhere, which I don't mind as we live in a small town with most amenities, and school is nearby. We went through a stage of having no car and it was very hard as we felt reliant on others. Things like kids friend's parties being out of town etc, often had to ask for lifts. Things like Brownies who would casually announce that they would meet in leisure centre in the next town etc etc. Also the car brings freedom. We like walking and driving to the countryside; this is very hard without a car and with 5 DC. A car means you can take all your stuff at leisure without having to carry it on buses etc. It gives freedom and choice and privacy.

On the flip side it has caused alot of problems. Road accidents kill many many people. Lots of children used to be killed down the mines when they worked there. This has stopped but many more are now killed in road accidents. This is terrible yet dismissed as 'accidents' just as those children who died during child labour used to be. This is wrong. We need to find a way of using less cars. I do accept that some people need cars, most people probably BUT it can't go on as it is surely. There must be something else

CamperFan - never said people should not use cars. Should be more thoughful about when they really need to use one.

Our DCs go one way in the taxi and come back one way (saving two journeys). If our town had a cycle path we would use it and not use taxis.

YouOldSlag - "can I buy a pint of milk in the snow?"

That is the test we use as well. We can walk into town if there is snow and the cars are slipping all over the place. In fact, where we live the roads get blocked pretty frequently so anyone with a car is more stuck for a pint of milk than we are.

My next door neighbours are an elderly couple that drive. They still do their supermarket shop in the car. The woman does the driving as the man is slightly disabled but she became ill a few weeks back and he could not get a proper food shop done. He asked me how to do a supermarket shop online. Another example of someone who had never thought of being without a car before.

Oh FGS bettybat I could shrug and airily tell people to 'make life work for you' about any number of society's problems but it's not actually making any kind of useful contribution is it?

YABU, Public transport is not a viable option for many people, people don't always have a choice about where they work, and shift work/flexible work hours can make it difficult to use public transport. Even if you live in a major city, issues such as the distance between your work and your child school (often not a choice, if nearby schools are oversubscribed), can make PT too time consuming and too expensive to use.

We relocated to a rural area because of DH job. PT is VERY expensive, but worse than that, it's incredibly time consuming as going anywhere involves at least an hour (often closer to 2hours) in each direction (but only 15 or 20 min by car). From 7pm in the evenings, and all weekend, PT is available at a quarter of the weekday frequency.
For activities, parties, social stuff, our 4DS get driven - Buses COULD be used, and sometimes are, but the stress and hassle and time wasted is incredible! Not to mention the cost.
I used to live in a city, with very good transport links - buses at our door every 10mins right to the centre of town, we were happy to use them and didn't have a car. I think "city people" don't have much idea about how time-consuming and draining using buses and trains is, if you are not living in a very well connected, very urban area.
When we moved to a small village for DH job, he HAD to get a car for his job, and I lasted about 12 months using rural buses before I got a car too, I just couldn't take the stress any more (3 preschoolers, long waits between connecting buses etc). The freedom was BLISS and actually the cost was LESS than our spending on buses/taxi fares (small, cheap to insure/tax and run).

I don't think it's our reliance or our desire to have our own, private vehicles to use as-and-when we want to that is the big issue........ it's the use of fossil fuel to power them. That's what needs to change. We need more investment in renewable energy alternatives.

I don't think public transport is too expensive. I spend £450 a year on a bus ticket that gives me unlimited travel to work and all over the county (we are lucky in that the bus stop is outside my house and the bus service is very good). DD pays 20p per journey with a discount card that is free for all children from the bus company. We take the odd train, and an accompanied child costs only £1. And we take an occasional taxi if abslolutely necessary. So even being generous, I can only spend a maximum of about £800 a year on transport that gets us pretty much wherever we want to go (barring leaving the country).

How much does it cost to run a car for a year? I haven't a clue, but I'm guessing it's more than that.

I also agree with someone else who said that time travelling on PT isn't necessarily time wasted. I love my 35 minute bus journey to work, because I can read, think, daydream, make a phone call, send an email and MN in peace. It's precious 'still' time that I don't get during the rest of the day. When DD's with me on the bus or train we read together.

Quenelle there's no sense in getting all "FGS" about - except for the fact that you're illustrating Bennifer's point beautifully - that on the whole, most car drivers cannot see a life beyond driving. I didn't post what I did about imagining a world without personal car ownership just to be obtuse but to pose a real question - can you imagine it?

It not, you're demonstrating the limitations of your mental constraints when it comes to the physical ability you have to move around, but which the ease and convenience of relying on a car has taking away from you.

This is what we are heading towards. I am not even joking. I wish I was. When they made this, maybe they were actually saying something about the reliance we have on things that are having a negative impact upon us.

Forgot to say

This is not a personal attack on anyone, or anyone's way of life. But I completely agree with Bennifer when she says that there is an over-reliance on cars. For those people that don't drive, they don't give it a second thought - a walk to the public transport, timing things, waiting etc. It's encompassing in the journey.

For drivers, some of whom are coming across as very defensive on this thread at the suggestion it's not necessary for them to drive all the time, they can't imagine a life that involves some walking, some waiting. That's what they learnt to drive for in the first place. I get it. I do. It's not an attack on you.

But don't take it so personally when I say you have no appetite for wanting anything else, and you can't see what is wrong about that.

I am not limited by mental constraints, I have said upthread exactly what it would require for me to no longer be reliant on cars. That's why I'm so exasperated.

I didn't always live in London. I got around OK.

And where I actually live in London, after 7.30 at night, trains into and out of Central London are every half an hour. I live in South London so there's no tubes. There's an express bus that takes an hour to get into Central London, and it comes on the hour. It's certainly not the countryside but it's definitely not all the tube-train-every-2-minutes that some people seem to think.

The point is - cities, large towns, small towns, villages - ALL drivers could use their cars less, be less reliant to some extent within the capacity of their situation. Most, however, can't fathom it at all.

I lived in South London as well for years - there's tons of transport you cannot possibly compare it to living in some parts of the country

Of course there is an over reliance on cars but it's not through lack of imagination for many people.

As I have described in my posts before, many people in the future will actually be even more car reliant than they are now. New towns being built to supply much-needed housing should be sustainable, so inhabitants can live, work, play, be educated and be looked after without having to drive to everything. But they're not because planning regulations are being relaxed. I'm not typing it all out again, go read back upthread if you're really interested.

I don't think I did? I'm pretty sure I said it's certainly not the countryside?

But I was showing that I don't just rock up to my station, and hey presto - there's a train to take me into work/a friend's/whatever

I time stuff, check timetables, check running services etc. And when I'm out, and if I miss a train, I have to hang around Victoria station for half an hour for the next train. So NOT a tube train every couple of minutes, and not what some people might think ALL London transport is like. A per my point

I accept I have made choices. I prioritised a safe environment, with good schools, and nice community for my DC over not using a car. Also DH has to use his car at work.
Even other large cities don't have the density of PT that London does btw.

betty after years of not driving within 5 months of moving out of London I had passed my test. If you live in London you can get anywhere - you just can't in some places there is NO PT whatsoever. A concept I found very hard to get my head around after moving.

I don't think public transport is too expensive.

One word: Trains.

Buses are unbelievably expensive here too.

Oh I give up!

You guys - you just can't manage the prospect of not driving! It's really, really sad.

Not you Quenelle I can see we were talking at cross purposes.

Valium - no one ever said driving was a bad thing. I never said driving was bad. In my initial post I said I never learnt not because of some ideological reason not to. There are many positives.

Over-reliance means too much, not being able to get anywhere without driving, driving down to the road to the shops, not being able to figure out public transport or deal with the concept of walking anywhere. Too much driving is bad thing. The entire point of this thread was that this fuel shortage has demonstrated how reliant we are. Not that no one should ever drive anywhere, ever. Can you get your head around that?

Yes tty, bbbut if you shell out for a car, with all the fixed costs, it is often cheaper to use it, than to pay for transport.