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 .

I have a car because my house has its own parking. If it hadn't, I'd probably get rid of

I just don't think that they need cars, as a rule

you dont need a car.

People have asked why you need a car and you have responded saying you have one because you have space for one. That isnt justification for having one. Having the space doesnt make it a need. You are complaining about how driving in bristol is a nightmare because of the volume of traffic but nobody wants to do anything about it yet YOU are part of that volume you complain of despite not actually needing to be. You have no idea of the circumstances of any of those students or why they might need a car but you are aware of your own circumstances and know you dont need a car yet choose to drive one, adding to the traffic you complain about. But they are the problem? really?

Be the change you want to see in the world OP

This Cambridge thing is crap - I used to work at a different universities students union, where locals also hated students parking. Cambridge never had the power to officially ban cars, they just discouraged it and told all and sundry it was banned.

as other op's have said, hmo's are probably a far bigger cause of parking issues than students, and it is completely unreasonable to impose a blanket ban on one section of society.

I'm sure if cars were banned on the school run the streets would also be much quieter, but that is as unviable a solution as the student one.

One of my children graduated as a nurse last year. During placements they might have to travel several miles at all hours, 6 am starts 10 pm starts etc. So yes you are being unreasonable, I think the NHS was be in a worse state without these young people spending half the year on the wards.

Surely nobody believes this crap that a university has the power to ban it's students from car ownership???? How would they even know? Big sigh

OP I think this is one of the oddest AIBU threads I have read.

YABVVVVVVU

HTH

YABU.

I needed my car to get to work when I was a student.

I live 18 miles from uni, have a disability which affects me carrying things and to get to uni would require me to take one train, two buses and a ten minute walk. I'm not a medic / teacher but have placements / observation days / sessions in court etc all over the district. Yes, part of it is my choice, but a) it's the best uni for me and b) I have zero chance of getting a job without all the running around. I'm also a volunteer manager with a massive charity AND I work. If I didn't drive, I couldn't fulfil my obligations.

YABVVVVU.

I'm a mature student and live 25 miles away from Uni. Trust me, my alarm is much needed. At my uni, you can only get a car park pass if you meet certain criteria. Students are encouraged to use public transport but it just isn't feasible for some of us.

Alarm!! DYAC, I meant my car.

YABU!!!

If anyone shouldn't own cars, it's healthy, able bodied people who use them in a city just for the school run, shopping etc.

Same to an extent for pensioners living in a city. With a free bus pass.

Still, we have the freedom in this country to own a car if we want to.

I had problems at uni, I was part time and the course I was doin g ceased to exist so I could change course or go to another uni for the same one. I chose the latter, the uni was 110 miles away, I drove.

I also have a disabiity so public transport would have been difficult to do without pre booking seats and if you don't know whether a lecture will turn in to a discussion that goes on for 1 hour after the lecture finishes then you can't book seats.

Maybe you should ban SAHP from cars - they don't need them to get to work, or uni lecturers or how about realising that we are all human and residents' parking is for residents

With the exception on students on tricky placements, most of the excuses for needing a car here are ridiculous.

The rise in student numbers, with universities greedily expanding without regard for those around them, has had a detrimental effect on many areas. It's not surprising people feel resentment.

I don't think the fact of being a student should make someone ineligible to have a car, but there's plenty that can and should be done to reduce student car use.

Parking permit systems should have limits on the number of permits per building, with 2nd and 3rd permits painfully expensive and 4th impossible. HMO buildings should not be exempt. Universities shouldn't allow students permits for their car parks except for e.g. Disabilities or studying a course that mixes university study with on-the-job learning elsewhere such that travel is an intrinsic part of the course, and should police their car parks properly to ensure that students aren't hogging the visitor pay&display spaces to get around the lack of permit. Proper enforcement of things like this can make a big difference - but the fact of being registered on a course of study impacting your right to own a vehicle - YABU.

Many universities don't usually offer parking permits to students. Where they do have car parks students can use, they're often pay and display.

YABRidiculous. I live in a student area and an area that's very touristy. Parking is a PITA. But I don't think that students should be restricted. Where would it even start? All students? But what about student parents? What about students who live far from their uni? Mature students? Students who work? Students who have a course that involves a placement? Etc.

What about mature students? Students who are parents? They might need to drive their own children to childminders / school / clubs - just like any other parent.

I don't own a car or drive and get stick for that. At the moment, where I live, I don't need to drive.

Why do people get so cross at others, regarding decisions, that are legally their own to make?

YABU and a snob, OP. Bristol public transport is notoriously shit, and seconding what a PP said about missing lectures or tutorials at certain times because the buses were so unreliable. The buses that the uni ran from the centre were ALWAYS packed because the service was so much better than public transport, but it meant that people further down always missed them because they were already full. (I got up early and went to the first stop, but then it was only an extra 10 min walk for me.)

Short version: utter ridiculousness. If you care so much about the traffic, get rid of your own car.

carlajean I'm a student and live in Bristol, just outside a RPZ area. I have a car. I also have 4 DC. I'm a healthcare student and need a car to get to placements. Where shall I deliver my car to you as I clearly don't need it

Is anyone else just amazed at how many students have cars now? When I was at uni it was only the mature students with families who had them. The rest of us just walked or had bikes and that included people from wealthy families who'd come direct from top public schools. Has student life changed so much in 15 years? Surely student finance is actually worse now.

I lived in a student house of 8. One of the 4 car owners was moaning about the parking on our terraced street. One was a motability car. The other 3 were used to allow access to jobs on nightshifts, the income being essential to these people financially surviving university. For many students, their age, experience and postcode make the insurance costs very expensive. No one I knew owned a car for fun, it was a functional utility.

My neighbourhood is suffering from over-parking as adult children can't afford to move out of their parental home. In the 80s the housing was designed for two-car families, not 3 or 4. That doesn't mean we should dictate who is worthy of car ownership.

I was a student 15 years ago and loads of people had cars. Some people travelled into the campus every day from quite a distance. We needed them because as archaeology students we were always out on site weekly in completely random parts of the country to do our fieldwork. No, the department minibus didn't always take us there, particularly if it was for self study or towards our dissertation. And no, buses, cycling or trains wouldn't have worked as we needed to go to locations in the middle of nowhere. We used to organise it so everyone got a ride to where they needed in case they didn't have transport if it was a group field exercise.

What a ridiculous post, blaming one demographic of the population for inconveniencing your lifestyle. YABU.

SolomonDaisy - I was at university in the second half of the 1980s and masses of students had cars.

Really? I'm surprised, it must vary hugely between universities then. I suppose some places are more suited to cycling/walking than others and some universities are stricter than others about student parking.

Any regrets about posting, OP?

Tbh I think the more pertinent question is that of why car ownership is such a necessity for modern life?

Immediately I can see many factors coming into play. Businesses moving out of towns because of high rents, unreliable public transport, not enough cycle paths to feel safe cycling, jobs and courses requiring people to travel, people choosing to live away from their work in outlying villages or suburbs instead of being within walking distance to towns and cities.

All of these factors affect students too.

You're allowed a maximum of 3 permits per household so that will put the kibosh on 8 students in the same house all having cars.

Public transport in Bristol is hopeless though - the buses are really unreliable. Most people drive because they can't rely on public transport to get them to where they need to be when they need to be there.