Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder where people get this expectation that they are entitled to drive round in cars, polluting the planet.

186 replies

totallybewildered · 05/07/2015 22:56

How did it become an automatic right to drive round everywhere. Do people do it just because they can afford it? Does anyone avoid it for he sake of the human race, and the planet? I know some people have little choice, but many people who do have a choice, drive anyway.

OP posts:
reni1 · 05/07/2015 23:46

I don't know, I don't drive, but I live in a big city and everything is in easy cycling distance plus great public transport.

People are generally rational and if walking and public transport is doable they won't drive. Everybody driving usually means they can't do what they need to without a car. Might be financial, health, number of children...

FyreFly · 05/07/2015 23:48

My car's so green it doesn't qualify for VED.

When I was living in a city, I rarely used the car. Shops were in walking distance, and public transport was regular, cheap, 24 hours a day, and reliable.

Now I live in the country, I have a small Co-op a 40 minute walk away. The buses come once an hour (if they turn up, that is), and stop running at 6pm.

I love my car Grin

DawnOfTheDoggers · 05/07/2015 23:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CoolWheelsPan · 05/07/2015 23:51

I don't think people think rationally at all. At least not on a strategic level. Hence the madness of car culture.

There's a vast habit of people driving into cities roughly at the same time and driving home again at the same time.

When I'm Minister for Cars you'll all have to apply to me to own one. And your applications will be rejected.Grin

Cars will also be limited to 50 mph tops.

jellybeans · 05/07/2015 23:56

One of the problems is that because almost everyone has a car, society is built around that and without a car you can feel isolated and dependant on others (depending on where you live). I share a car with DH so half the time rely on public transport or walking.

Having a car gives freedom and has brought us many amazing days out. But there is a huge price to pay to the environment and in accidents and people's lives. However many people rely on cars so much. DH needs his for work, there are no buses here at 5am when he goes to work. I don't know what the answer is.

AnyoneForTennis · 05/07/2015 23:57

Big trucks drive around the country getting everything into the shops for you to buy op..... Sorry your thread hasn't turned into a bunfight. I'm sure that's why you started it.... Goady

DisappointedOne · 05/07/2015 23:58

I've done 700 miles since 7pm yesterday. It would probably take about a fortnight to do that on public transport and the leer jet is being serviced Hmm

Atenco · 06/07/2015 03:21

I smoke and I'm not proud of it, but I got told off by a sportsman for smoking near him, to his detriment, on an open street full of cars moving bumper to bumper at 10 miles an hour and he could not see the irony of it.

I'm a bit shocked at some of the answers on here. Why do people get so hyped up about smoking around children and not give a fuck about petrol fumes?

I understand that rural transport in the UK is the pits and obviously some people really need cars, but the rest of us?

WorldsBiggestGrotbag · 06/07/2015 03:58

Well we've got a car as it would take DH 2 1/2 hours to cycle to work. 2 hours ish on public transport. We also live 100's of miles from our family and have a toddler, a baby on the way and a dog so would be a massive struggle to visit them on public transport (no dogs on trains!)

Andrewofgg · 06/07/2015 04:59

Perhaps we should go back to most of us spending our lives within walking distance of where we are born. Get a life.

BeautifulBatman · 06/07/2015 05:14

I've got two cars (one of which is a 4x4 gas guzzler) and I don't work. I just use them to drive around, shopping, visiting friends etc. I don't want to have to depend on unreliable public transport. Nor do I want to have to walk home with a weeks worth of grocery shopping. I'm 6 months pregnant and I have multiple pets at home. What about emergency hospital/vet visits? Nope, my driving is my independence. I will not be giving that up or feeling guilty about that for anyone.

CoolWheelsPan · 06/07/2015 06:09

"Perhaps we should go back to most of us spending our lives within walking distance of where we are born. Get a life."

Progressive idea there. Motor pollution is the enemy of maintaining and improving life.

Mistigri · 06/07/2015 06:17

I don't think the OP is saying people shouldn't have cars, just that they should think twice about using them.

I regularly see people drive to one shop, park outside to pop in, then drive a few metres up the road to stop right outside the next shop. Almost everyone drives their kids to school - in a small town where there are two primaries and most people live within a 10-15 min walk of school. It's lunacy.

Teabagbeforemilk · 06/07/2015 06:58

The main problem is that people are too busy to walk everywhere. School run for example, some people at our school could walk. However, they have to on their way to work immediatly so don't have time to walk back for their car.

Our village has one rubbish local shop and the supermarket is 3 bus rides away. The one that comes into the village only comes once an hour. School is 2 bus rides away and would then would have 15 min walk. No way am I getting the kids up at 6am so we can leave at 7am when they aren't at school until 8.45.

People also work further from their homes that they used to. My dad has always worked within walking distance of his home. I worked 30 miles away.

I never take my car when we are in London, because the transport is good. That's not the case format of the country.

DinosaursRoar · 06/07/2015 07:03

Well, I don't drive a 4x4, or live in the middle of nowhere, but I do drive a lot of journeys that are less than 2miles, supermarket run or taking the dcs places mainly. In our town, there's fabulous public transport if you want to go to our town centre, or on the train to London (commuter town), but for any other journey, it's a bit shit. Plus carrying your food from the supermarket it tricky if you want more than a days worth or want to bulk buy.

Driving makes most peoples lives easier, considerably easier. As a country, we don't have the interest in putting London levels of public transport elsewhere in the country. It would take a huge amount of taxpayers money to improve public transport links, not just from towns and villages into the nearest big city, but linking the towns and villages, putting on regular buses that will sit empty most of the time, to cover most journey's people currently take. (Not sure how environmentally friendly empty buses and trains can be seen).

A choice was taken when so many of the small linking branch lines on the rail network where closed 60 years ago that we wouldn't be a nation that uses public transport to transport the bulk of the public other than the most heavily used routes (usually into cities). As a nation, we have accepted private transportation would be the only option for many journeys, it's rather unfair to then blame the individuals for using the only form of reliable transportation available to them, or that even if there is alternatives for some journeys, making a system where you need to have bought, taxed and insured a car anyway, it's hardly surprising people will then use the form of transport where the main costs are fixed regardless of number of journeys made, the variable part (petrol) being generally considerably lower than the cost of one off public transport usage.

Teabagbeforemilk · 06/07/2015 07:05

I don't think anyone has an automatic right to drive. You have the right to drive if you get yourself a license, can afford a road worthy car and maintain it and afford insurance.

If you can't do any of that you have no right to drive a car

SoupDragon · 06/07/2015 07:11

OP As others have said - I assume you are a vegan and have no more than one child?

x2boys · 06/07/2015 07:18

because getting anywhere by bus can take hours and i dont live in a rural area.

Effendi · 06/07/2015 07:19

If I could get a bus from my village to my work and back I would. It costs me €40 a month to park and €80 a month in fuel.
Where I live everybody drives as public transport outside of the tourist areas is shockingly.

DoreenLethal · 06/07/2015 07:20

So you're an able bodied, city dwelling, UK holidaying, tent dwelling, vegan are you OP?

No - they were whining about too many plants littering the planet on another thread. Because all that air they purify is contaminating the planet. Tsk.

Effendi · 06/07/2015 07:28

.....shockingly bad.
Also I own two cars and one of them is 4x4....

VeloWoman · 06/07/2015 07:33

I sort of agree with you OP, DH and I lived car free for four years before giving in and buying one small fuel efficient car to share when DS was born. I fully accept that many people need cars for many very good reasons, we found that some things were very difficult without a car (ikea runs mainly) and some are easier with one like large grocery shops. But I think what bothers me is the unthinking automatic car use, I know some people who just automatically get in their cars to anywhere unless it's the next door neighbours! The environment doesn't even get a look in and neither does the health benefits of walking/cycling.

Plus as someone who was unable to drive for a year due to having a seizure it worries me that some people are so incredibly car dependant, since we are set up to be able to shop/do school runs/get to work without cars we mama aged fine but I have some friends who would be completely stuck without one.

And no we are not vegan, but we try to minimise our meat and dairy consumption, I breastfeed and use cloth nappies but we went on a plane last year to see family, it's not about being perfect it's just about doing what you can to minimise your enrivomental impact as a family IMO.

riverboat1 · 06/07/2015 07:33

A few hundred container ships travelling about in unregulated international waters cause more pollution than all the cars in the world:

www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/

RattieofCatan · 06/07/2015 07:35

Meh. I commute by car and DH does because it's much much easier and much cheaper than trying to use the train/buses. Not that he hasn't tried, it was a disaster. I can't as I work rurally. Even when he goes back to uni and we're back down to one car I'll still have to pick him up from work as it'll take him an hour to get home otherwise (20min drive for me).

It can also be cheaper to hire a car for us rather than taking the train when travelling from Sussex to Essex, which is fucking ridiculous. By coach it's cheaper but it's very hit and miss on travel times.

We live 3 miles from our city centre, the bus is almost £5. Walking is an option but bloody difficult (big hills, especially for those of us with health issues), especially if you only need to pop in. It is cheaper to take a car and park for 2hrs than to take the bus. It is bullshit. The bus also doesn't like to turn up. If you have an appointment in town then you are fucked.

I think OP was looking for a bunfight as she tried to start one on a thread about what car to buy and was told to go start her own thread. It is a topic worth talking about though. I don't think people should drive unnecessarily, though I'm guilty of it myself as we all are to a certain extent. If I didn't live halfway up a 2mile hill I would probably walk more, my gym is at the bottom of the hill and I daren't walk the distance for fear of not being able to get back up.

Public transport is stupidly expensive in my area. When I visit my family in Essex I have to take my car, even though I could get to my Mums by public transport I couldn't visit my old friends or my MIL (they live in a town a 40-50min bus ride + 15min changeover on a dodgy corner in the middle of nowhere away, or 20mins drive). It's still much cheaper for me to take my car than it is to get the bus to the station, get on a train, get the tube and get another train. I also don't have to worry about replacement buses, finding a seat, waiting for my next train, getting onto a train with no toilet and so on.

riverboat1 · 06/07/2015 07:36

Big polluters: one massive container ship equals fifty million cars:

www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/