to say that students shouldn't own cars?

[carlajean]

I'm living in Bristol, which is rolling out Residents Parking Schemes throughout the city (an excellent idea, I think). We have lots of students here, which is great, but many of them own cars. If they didn't, the streets would be considerably quieter. I know that other universities tell students that they can't have cars, and I really can't see why they would need them, and it would be a good way of helping with parking problems .

YABU. No one owns the road more than you do based on age or current state of their career. As easy to say SAHM don't need cars as they can walk their children to school and shop for the day on the way home. It's what I do from day to day so it must be applicable to all, no matter the circumstances or convenience.

I want to go to Uni next year as a mature student but may end up distance learning. I need to drive for about an hour to get there. I'd need to drive as public transport would take too long to get home and pick DDs up from childcare. I'm sorry but I've already googled the roads where I'll be able to park (ie not in a residents' scheme) but the next few roads over.

I've worked for 20+ years but I don't think that makes me any more entitled to a space than anyone else who has paid their car tax/ insurance/ MOT for the year. We all get dibs on any parking space, anywhere in the country, that is free for use without restrictions.

When I was a student in the first half of the 70s lots of students had cars and by the time I was a postgrad I had one myself.

That surprises me. When I was an undergrad/postgrad from the end of the 70s-mid 80s, just about the only undergrads who could afford a car were a few engineering students who were being sponsored, and I can't remember any postgrads having one at all. (I couldn't afford a TV till I got my first job) I guess we were in a city with good public transport, and also of course a lot of people cycled.

Anyway - I don't think that students should be 'banned' from having cars but if they're living on loans then for most it can't make sense.

I'm a student. i have a car. I'd love to know how to get to placement for long shifts without one, would be a canny walk.

Well as you say OP, the "problem" is that houses have been made into flats.

The fact that they are occupied by students is immaterial imo.

Going by that logic, why does anyone who lives in a city need a car? Most big cities have plenty of public transport yet thousands of people who live there have cars. Why do they need them when there's adequate public transport? That would really reduce the parking and traffic problems.

Thing is, crazykat, many people in cities don't need cars, just have the habit of them, or think that somehow they aren't fully adult if they don't drive. I wish that not having a car was the norm for city-dwellers (those who didn't need them for disability reasons, or transporting goods, or whatever, anyway). I use public transport, and if I really do need to drive somewhere in the city (because eg I am carrying too much stuff to take on the tube), I get a cab - and whizz past all these people driving their own cars stuck in traffic, as cabs can go on the bus lanes.

Oxford doesn't allow students in university owned accommodation to own cars

I would imagine its more that they dont allow them on university owned property rather than not allowing the students to own them. They wouldnt have a hope in hell of winning that one.

"Going by that logic, why does anyone who lives in a city need a car?"

Well that would work if they never went anywhere else other than within the city!!

So I'll just leave uni then due to the fact that I live in the countryside with no public transport.
Oh and I'll just leave my drive empty.
And pay to get my shopping delivered.
And my dog doesn't need to go to the vet or on walks other than the local park.
And I won't visit my family unless I want to take said dog on the train, after getting a lift to the station from a neighbour. Oh, and once I'm home I'll sit in my Mums house all day waiting for her to drive me around.
Basically, I won't leave my village. Ever.

My full time life isn't 'being a student' just like I'm sure other people's lives aren't 'working in an office' or 'being a teacher'.

While i was a medical student, a nursing student was stabbed on her way out of A&E to the bus stop late at night, i was working late that night too. That was central manchester, not bristol, but cycling through St Werburghs at 2 am on the way home from Frenchay ED was equally risky!

I drove a heap during my clinical years, but it made me feel much more secure with late finishes etc.

Healthcare students tend to have placements out and about, and long hours, so not necessarily meshed with public transport (bristol uni send them as far as yeovil and taunton fyi and ive done both of those by train after qualifying - on Mot day - and its not conducive to study!)

What about non-central universities? Would you have the centre of bristol only available to bristol uni students and exclude uwe? That would be likely to hit mature students and students with families more heavily. Are you happy with that? What about OU? Postgraduates? Would you have student parents be late after dealing with nursery drop offs?

Passes would be ridiculous too. There are many parking passes for campus unis already, and students pay up if they can get one or park on the public highway. Outside of class, they are adults who pay insurance and road tax, so what could it have to do with anyone else. They still have the same other journeys to make as anyone else.

Bristol parking is atrocious, and im not sure residents' permits are the way forward tbh, but I chose not to move to clifton/redland because of the parking. Even without the student cars, you still have commuters leaving cars on residential roads, and the permits will make it more difficult to make occasional visits to these areas of town, whether for shopping, meeting with friends or whatever. But it doesnt follow that its a student problem.

I'm a student. And I've got a car. Can you tell me, OP, how I should get to my teaching placement 25 miles away, no direct public transport, carrying 120 books that I took home for marking as easily? Or how I'd do my shopping, living outside of town, with DD? Where would the bags of nappies, kitchen roll, cat litter go? The pram would need to be the size of a tank!

Tell you what, I'll order it all online. However, since I'm on uni placement, one of my neighbours will need to sign for it...

Errol
I was at Exeter, Loughborough and Nottingham Universities and there were plenty of people with cars back in the 70s. Even BIL (at Imperial) had one though he managed to crash it into a lamp post in Exhibition Road

YABU. No one gives a toss what things were like back in your day and blah blah blah. Time marches forward.

We had a car when I lived in University owned (well college owned) property in Oxford. I was a a student DH needed it to get to work. If you are "in college" you can't get a parking permit or park in college, unless disabled. Some of the other accommodation does have parking. Other students lived out and even parked in the park and rides.

The real issues is the local authority should control HMOs and enforce planning rules which allow proper parking (oh and provide better public transport).

YABU - it's totally up to them how they spend their money. You could argue that each house has a maximum number of residents passes, according to size...but singling them out is just strange. Not that it matters, but students might need a car to get to their placements e.g medical shifts which start/finish late at night.

But surely lots of people don't really need cars - especially in a city which presumably has a decent level of public transport.
The PP who wrote this obviously has never been to Bristol where the public transport system isn't great. Buses are expensive and the traffic congestion makes the timetable unreliable.
The problem isn't just with student cars though. More needs to be done to encourage commuters to park elsewhere e.g. by having more park and ride schemes.

Students not allowed cars here. Or at least, not without permission from the motor proctor, and to get permission, they have to show a need for it, and that they have somewhere legal to park it (which is unlikely to be anywhere near college/university accommodation). Some do get permission, if they have field work/placements or work at out of town departments or hospitals or whatever. But not many. They also have restrictions on where you can live though, which narrows things a bit.

I was a student who didn't live at university I travelled 40 minutes from home to university I therefore kept my car as it meant I could do my studies, keep my job which was based in four locations and still live at home therefore saving on rent whilst studying.... Not all students live around the university and some travel home most weekends meaning keeping a car is easier than relying on the train (especially with all the washing they bring back for parents )

Get over yourself. I say that as a student taking driving lessons

We actively encourage our students to have cars in the faculty I work in. It makes life so much easier for the placements office if the students can actually get themselves where they need to be. Students without cars can be placed up to 1.5 hours travel (each way), which may include more than one change on public transport. So having a car is obviously an advantage.

Why on earth should the council discriminate against students in allocating (and charging for) residential parking permits? If you don't like having lots of student neighbours in converted properties, live in a bit of Bristol that is unpopular with students. It's not difficult. Or you just accept that you choose to live in an a awash with students which makes parking tricky (but presumably you've balanced that with advantages that make you want to stay).

YANBU.

Most students don't NEED to run a car. My DiL was a Bristol medic and she cycled to her placements including the one in Bath.

However, have to agree that public transport inc. park and ride schemes in Bristol are rubbish compared to those in northern cities like Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester etc. expensive and unreliable. Taxies are poor value too.

So so glad I left Bristol.

Well, for everyone who asked, I have a car because my house has its own parking. If it hadn't, I'd probably get rid of it. Driving in Bristol is awful (because of the volume of traffic) and I find public transport is OK.
While everybody agrees there are too many cars in the city, nobody has an idea of how to solve the problem (and hate any solutions that might affect them, like RPZ) and I still think that, yes, students, in general, don't need cars. Those that do could make an individual case for having one.
And for the usual nitwits who didn't read my post and jumped to conclusions, I said that I liked living in a place with lots of them. I just don't think that they need cars, as a rule. But hey, don't let that stop you from putting on your judgy pants.

Am a bit at all the people here who think they'd be helpless if they didn't have a car. People do manage, you know?

For one thing, the buses in Bristol are awful. I used to miss 9am lectures all the time, as the first bus wouldn't show up, then the second bus would be over crowded due to that and wouldn't let anyone else one.

For another, I think if it's round UWE campuses that you're having trouble, this problem will probably get better soon - campus parking has gone from 80p a day to about £3, and you have to prove that you need a car in order to get a term pass.

One last point, lots of people pass their test at 17. If they then can't take their car to Uni, they'll have only been driving a few months, then essentially giving up for 3 or 4 years. Do you really want them back on the road after this time?

DH needed a car at uni because he was doing an arts degree and there was no way he'd get to the out-of-town printers and back with huge printed display boards etc without a car. He also needed to source supplies etc too.

Several of my house mates had cars because they were training to be teachers. They needed to commute all around the surrounding areas to school placements, take resources/marking in etc.

I didn't have a car because I didn't need one, I used the uni bus and bought an annual bus pass. My course was 100% on campus and I lived very close to the bus route.

Where we live, there's lots of family homes with older kids, most with cars. So one house could have 3-4 cars. Not students necessarily, just parents and kids of driving age. Car ownership is par for the course I think. I had a car (as an working adult) out of convenience, I could have bused to work, but we had a second car as it was easy. I needed it way less than a teaching/med student would do, but that's obviously okay to park on your street as I'm not a student

I didn't use use my car for lectures, I walked. I did use my car for the Scout group I ran - I needed it to take equipment back and forth weekly, and so I could get tents and stuff over to Woodhouse and further for camping. But I'm sure you'd rather think of all Students as lazy and spending all their timing boozing and skipping lectures.