AIBU to get annoyed that a two-car household seems the norm these days?

[Abitlikechicken]

AIBU to hope I can get my (only) car out of the drive in less than a 200 point turn to get to work. A parking space or drive is provided with every house on our street but because everyone else is a two-car household, they're all double-parked up and down the street. Most days I have to push the pram up the middle of the road as everyone mounts their cars on the pavement. It pisses me off slightly when where we live is so well-connected public transport wise and guests visiting us have to come by foot as there's nowhere to park!

I dont even have one car maybe one of your neighbours would give me one of their cars.

We have 2 cars. Because we need two cars. I don't really care what you or anyone else thinks about that.

I'd love to only have 1 car but unfortunately DH and I frequently have to be in 2 different places at the same time.

Public transport here is useless, infrequent, unreliable and eyewateringly expensive

We did try for nearly a year to cope with 1 car but it just wasn't possible for DH and I to do our jobs without a car each

We have a 2 car driveway so neither is parked in anyone else's way

Inconsiderate parking is a PITA though, our old house has a shared carpark which was marked out with a space allocated to each house (house numbers were painted in the spaces) but people still parked everywhere, 3 or 4 cars per house in other people's spaces. I'd never consider moving to a house without a driveway now

Agree with Lemonsole that the need for the second car often follows its acquisition.

We managed with one family car for over a year (school, nursery and work at opposite ends of two towns, home roughly in the middle). I decided I wanted a car, I got one and then decided it was a necessity once I'd got used to having it.

Thankfully I came to my senses and sold it. We are back to being a one car household and I bike to work (12k).

I disagree with lemon. At least in my case. We have always been 1 car.
Who ever was running dd to nursery or my parents for chilecare would take the car as neither of these were on an easily accessible buss route or walkable in the time we had.
both of our jobs were accessible from the house.
We go another car when I was offered a much better paid job. the bus route to the next City was great, one every 10minutes. Going the other way it was shit.
I needed a car to enable me to get back from work in time to get dd.
we know live some where that has a bus an hour. To get dd to school would require 3 buses and as to nursery would need another one on top of that.
You are looking at well over an hour in travel.
I am not going to make dd get up and hour earlier than she has to.
we need two
What does shock me is that we live on a new build estate. Th house are 3+ bedroom but the houses only have 1 parking space.
We only had a patch of grass as a front garden so we have turned it into a parking space.
Everyone here has 2+ cars, but parks considerately. there are no issue.
I think yabu to assume because you don't need two cars, that everyone else only has a second car because they want to or to piss you off.

We've only got one and it does less than 4,000 miles per year, but then we leave in a greater London suburb. What annoys me is that we are the first road outside of our local centre not to have residents parking so all and sundry park here to use public transport and commute so we can still never get parked! And to top it all off, somebody has left their car outside my house for the last 3 weeks and I suspect gone on hoilday (via Gatwick) - am reporting it abandoned if not gone by Tuesday.

Oh and no off street parking as houses weren't built with it, and front gardens aren't big enough to fit a car in even if we did convert it.

Waxy, it's a bummer that you don't have permit parking but unfortunately that means it is a public road. I don't think anything will happen if you report it except the council will have to check records to see if it is stolen.

If it's actually obstructing the road though you can call the police about it straight away.
www.bedford.gov.uk/transport_and_streets/abandoned_vehicles/report_abandoned_vehicle.aspx

We're in a Victorian property with no parking and our street can be hard to park on. But to afford to live on my street the vast majority of people will need to have two incomes.

Well if where you live is so well-connected public transport wise it's hardly a hardship if guests visiting have to come by foot as there's nowhere to park, is it? You sound like the old lady next door to us who has a disabled space outside her house which she uses to "reserve" a space for her non-disabled visitors (her car lives in her garage).

We had to have 2 cars because DH worked nights 20 miles away in one direction and I worked days 20 miles away in the opposite direction. If I waited for him to get home before leaving for work/ school we'd all have been horribly late every single day.

We considered our own family's needs when deciding on transport, just like everyone else does. I do think there are an awful lot of MNetters who live in London/ large cities and assume that everyone else has exactly the same access to excellent public transport links that they do. Dream on.

Lemonsole I completely disagree.

DH and I had two cars when we were both working (mobile jobs).
Then I became a SAHM and DH changed jobs so that he was commuting to London. We had just one car, and I used to get DS1 out of bed every morning and we would take DH to the station, and then go and pick him up at the end of the day.
Then DH got made redundant and his new job meant that he needed to drive there, so we got another car for him to use.

Trust me, we would love not to have the extra thousands of pounds each year that it costs to keep two cars on the road and in good condition.

We both have jobs where on paper we need two cars but we only have one. We swap over when collecting children or doing something at work that requires one. It's much cheaper it just takes more effort. I think people don't like to have to make effort these days.
Our neighbours definitely smile at us more now we just have one car!
Think I would have like the Victorian era!

Ha ha, this thread made me laugh. What a bunch of idiots who can't fail to see that people's lives are not exactly the same as theirs.

Shouldnt have more cars than space on the drive

Some people live in houses without drives or even, flats! You're right though they should totally not be allowed to have a car Naughty people.

the need for the second car often follows its acquisition

Uh, yeah. I would like to have seen you come up with a suitable plan to have got my dad to work an hour away, and then able to do home visits during the day as well as getting mum to work (no bus, too far to walk, taking big boxes of marking to and from the uni) and me to school (primary school near mums work, secondary school I walked). Obviously then I needed to be taken and collected to various sports training and matches all over the city and county, before Dad was home from work.

Where I lived up until a month ago, my job involved working at different client sites often in the arse end of nowhere, no viable public transport and up to a 2h drive away. Also transporting files and equipment like a printer, scanner and big laptop bag. No car no job. No choice to 'think outside the box' and move house as I was only at each client for 1 week to 2 months.

Now I live in Central London. OMG it is amazing. So well connected! I am 5 min walk to two tube lines, it takes 30min to get to my set place of work. I could cycle if I wanted. You'd be mad to use a car to get to work now in my situation. My DP works a 12 min walk away. Before I moved, all my London friends were asking if I was going to sell my car and I just didn't get it. I don't see that it would be possible to live without it as in my last city I wouldn't have been able to. Now I think that the £700 insurance plus tax, service, MOT, parking permit are not really worth it for a few trips to Ikea or weekends away.

Final point: some people like cars a lot, and derive pleasure from their ownership and driving. Don't be so judgy pants because you can't afford / don't want one / don't need another car.

I sympathise totally with the OP on the parking issue, it was one thing we thought very carefully about when we bought our house 11 years ago (and yes we were lucky to be able to have a "limited" choice), we bought a house at teh end of a service raod, where there is NO PARKING except on drives, and we all have two parking spaces. We actually only have 1 car in our household as my DH cycles 12 miles each way to work everyday. But the question needs to be what is the solution to the problem, obviously better public transport might help - also mor eparking spaces in new building areas, and possibly more car parks in residential areas as well, but how about changing the car tax depending on how many cars you have, so make it cheaper than it is now for the first car, more expensive for the second (meaning it would cost the same as it does now for 2 cars) and increase dramatically for 3, 4, 5 etc cars per household - at the least it would make people think more carefully about whether their 17 year old really needs to take a car to school everyday.

I love cars. We have 2 due to our jobs. If I won the lottery I'd buy more!! :)

Ithinkitsjustme I think your car tax plan sounds all very sensible if you live somewhere you can manage with 1 car for a 2 adult plus children household, i.e. somewhere with public transport or facilities like local shops and schools within sensible walking distance; living rurally would be a nightmare with only one car, local shops no longer exist in the way they did when fewer people had cars, and many people can't find work within cycling distance or on a route to which they can car share, or can't drop various kids to childcare and get to work in under a couple of hours without using a car... People could choose to live in more practical areas transport wise in theory, but in practice lots of factors stop this being an option.

We have 2 cars because we need 2 cars but even if we didn't I wouldn't give up my motor as I love driving & the independence it gives me.
We park one on our drive & the other in front of our house, yes up on the curb to ensure other road users can get past comfortably due to the cars parked on the other side of the road which belong to our 4 car neighbours.......

I live 5 miles from the closest village, no public transport, 3 children needing appointments up to an hours drive away.

Dp works 50 miles away and does 12 hour days five days a week

Id love to drop to one car as we cant wanted two but it's not an option

Yabu just for saying think outside the box

We have one car. We got rid of the second car when we moved to a house which is 5 min walk from all shops, amenities and transport hub. We also replaced the main car with a tiny, cheap, Eco- friendly runaround.

We are constantly asked how we "manage" with just one tiny car. What about when we go on holiday? How do we do big trips across Europe in our little car? How do we manage when we need to buy big things? What about if we all need to go somewhere together - the questions are endless.

The fact is our car will seat 5 adults which is manageable on a short journey. It's brilliant on long trips as it only needs an occasional sip of petrol and we got an Ikea sofa bed into it and two adults. No we don't "really need" a Range Rover, but you get one if you want one.

We have two cars because we want two cars and it's perfectly within the law. I have the family car (modest mpv) into which I can fit four 6 footers and four cricket bags and which takes four adult sized people nicely to warmer parts of Europe.

To be fair the other one can only just be described as a car because it has to be plugged in before it works. But it avoids congestion charges and DH got to the point where he was tired of being coughed and sneezed over whilst pretending to be a sardine.

We have 2 cars. We live rurally, I work over an hour away from home, DH works nearer. The only public transport is geared around the needs of schoolchildren during term time, which is fine for DD, and pensioners, not people with jobs. It is also about a mile away from our house. We could all schlep to the bus stop, hours in advance of needing to be anywhere, but we can afford not to, and we don't want to, so we don't.

I work shifts, so dropping DH at work, or vice versa, would not work.

On top of that, I love my car and I love driving. My car is the "fun" one of the two, and there are enough arguments discussions about who gets to drive it to various places, without actually having to share it during the working week.

However, we have a garage and a drive, and we don't park inconsiderately. that would be rude.

It pisses me off slightly when where we live is so well-connected public transport wise and guests visiting us have to come by foot as there's nowhere to park!

If where you live is so well connected public transport wise, why have you got a car at all?

We're well connected here so we don't feel the need to own one.

DP works 14 miles in one direction and I'm 30 miles in the other direction. There's a significant overlap in hours so there's no way we could make it work with only one car, even without factoring in the DCs needs. I'm looking at alternative jobs now, so may sell my car if I get a local job where I could walk.

We too are in a rural area. I'd kill for the kind of amazing public transport that London has, but I don't want to live in a city, so two cars it is.

So, OP - when your child is old enough and decides s/he would like a car, carefully saves up for it and keeps it roadworthy you will be saying 'no, think of the neighbours trying to get out' will you?

YABU - sorry.