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

[totallybewildered]

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.

Growing up in London, I certainly didn't realise how bad public transport is for most of the country. There were three buses on my road and another twelve a two-minute walk away, outside the shopping centre. The train station was less than a mile away.

Now I have two buses within a mile of my house which run hourly at best, but often don't turn up at all. You can't possibly rely on them to get to the train station on time and pay £15 to get into the city. So even if you get the train to work, you need a car to drive to the station! This is why it's only the elderly and out-of-work who use the buses, which means they run at a loss and there is no hope of improvement. If they WERE improved, commuters could start using them and bring up profits. But nobody is interested in improving public transport when they can keep making money from car drivers instead.

I have a driving license but I choose not to drive. I personally prefer to walk or use public transport... but I wouldn't dream of suggesting others do it as I know the response I would get.

Well that's even worse ducky - all that pollution you added to learning to drive, all for no point????

I do think that environmental concerns should be more of a factor in people's decisions about whether to drive and fly. I don't drive and take the train to holiday in Europe - it's no hardship for me, but I think people assume that there is no alternative. Better public transport, better cycling lanes and public education campaigns would help.

people like you make me get even more pleasure from my car which does 9mpg. I work I the oil and gas industry so don't pay for fuel. what gives you the right to tell people what to do while sitting in your fossil fuel powered house.

Do helicopters use petrol? I travel about twice a week on offshore inspections as well. I also fly to Bahrain most weeks which is a 15 minute flight. I once went to Dubai 25 min flight to get tomato puree from waitrose! I am only being rude and goody because knobheads who bleed their hearts from suburban England boil my bum. I care about lots of things really but travel is most definitely not one of them.

I think cars should be banned from all towns and cities apart from access and for the disabled.

Money should be spent on making pleasant and safe walking and cycling routes, and better public transport.

People are very lazy and many do not realise that, actually, cycling or walking a few miles won't kill them and can actually be pleasant.

Bring back the horse & cart!!

I don't enjoy driving much but I have to. I work shifts, and where I work I would need to get a bus into the city centre and then a bus out to where I work, but only on certain shifts would that be possible. I would love to work close enough to home to not need to drive to work but I don't. I certainly don't think I am selfish driving to work. I could walk. Run or cycle but that would take me a couple of hours each way on top of a 10 hour shift. Not going to happen.

I did get the bus to work for a couple of years when my shifts weren't 24 hour ones and work was one bus ride away. That was my choice.

I'd love to be able to get rid of my car, but where I live is basically set up around everyone having cars. It would be a huge pain in the ass to do everything on foot or by public transport, and I would lose hours every week, which are already precious given that I work full time and commute. I am not going to martyr myself to giving up my car and taking twice or three times as long to do simple things like getting to work, going to the supermarket, going to my hobby etc. Unless bus services are completely overhauled it is not going to happen. Cycling not an option as I live at the top of a massively steep, uncyclable hill.

When the trains and busses start running on time and start costing a lot less, I'll use them everyday, until then it had to be the car, I'm not in walking distance of anything other than the train station which often just cancels trains or has trains running incredibly late.

Cars are necessary for modern life. However I do think they are overused. For example I walk to the train station, takes about 10 minutes. A couple of my neighbours drive and park in residential streets near to the station. I know from experience it takes about the same time. Excluding any extenuating circumstances, this is an example of unnecessary car journeys. I think some people just get into the habit of driving everywhere, and it never occurs to them to walk short journeys.

a car has just enabled the lifestyle you choose

to a point yes, however, they are a necessity since there was a decision taken by previous generations to not invest in public transport, and to actively dismattle public transport infrastructure that means that the lifestyle available in the city without a car is not available to the majority of the population who don't live in London or the small area at the very centre of other major cities. There isnt' enough space for the majority of people to choose to live in city centres, and public transport isn't adequate in many other areas to go completely car-less. We arent talking about just "middle of no-where rural living" - but many towns just outside large cities.

In our town, we can easily get a fast train into London - or to the large towns down the train track the other way, but that's it. There is little public transport around the town. There is little public transport to supermarkets, leisure centres, even the local A&E would be over an hour on infrequent public transport compared to being a 20 minute drive. The towns that are only a 20 minute drive but on a different line into London would take over 90 minutes to reach on public transport (requiring going in and then out again of London).

It's now a "chicken and egg" issue - there's little and infrequent public transport, so everyone owns a car (even if they commute into London 5 days a week, everyone I know round here has at least 1 car as well so they get around on weekends, get to supermarkets etc), because everyone owns a car, there's no demand for the public transport other than the train to London, and the public transport that does exist is relatively expensive and inconvient.

I can't see either major party particularly caring enough to invest heavily in public transport outside of London, that would probably make a loss for 20+ years until habits were changed, and even then, the low volume of passangers would probably mean that it would never make a profit.

Until as a country, we take the decision that the environment matters enough to put money into reliable alternatives outside of city centres (not just rurally, but within and between small towns), then it's unfair to point the finger at individuals making travel plans based the limited options they have.

I often choose not to drive and I chose to buy the house we live in almost entirely because I didn't want a lifestyle that was car-reliant.

However, most of my daily motivation to walk, run or cycle my commute is fresh air, exercise and a dislike of local congestion alongside parking difficulties. There are out of town places I can go to shop for example that have parking but I prefer the little shops on the streets without parking.

I do consider the planet occasionally but it's not at the forefront of my mind as I rush around collecting my ds, getting to work etc.

I would echo comments about the cost of public transport being prohibitive, especially if there are several of you travelling. In that case it is generally much cheaper to drive.

The cost isn't bad at all where I live. It's the lack of frequent, reliable buses going to useful destinations that is the issue for me.

It costs me around €80 per month for an all-zone, all-inclusive rail and bus travelcard (greater metropolis area of a major European city). But because I live quite far out in the suburbs I STILL need a car for practically all journeys that dont involve going into the city itself. I would much rather save money on running a car and just use the travel pass I already have! But...see post above...

I moved to my current house specifically because I wanted to get the train to work. It was a 25 minute cycle ride to the station from my house, then a 45 minute train and a 15 minute walk the other side - so it was a bit tedious but doable.

After 3 months in my new house they changed the trains and cut down from 10 a day to 5 a day meaning I either get to work at 7am (and leave the house before 6am each morning) or I get to work at 9.30am - can't see that going down too well with the boss.

I live in a non-rural part of Yorkshire but still have to drive to work because they've dismantled the last of the suitable public transport service. There are 64 million people in the UK - only 12 million live within the main cities which have decent-ish public transport infrastructure. So that leaves 52 million without city-standard public transport - a sixth will be pensioners so let's pretend they don't need to go anywhere, probably a similar amount again will work very close to home or not work so let's take them out the figures too. That's still 35 million people without good public transport who need to travel further than 5 miles to work (about 30 mins on a bike, 2 hours walking).

I'm sure it's very easy to moralise about the evils of driving if you're surrounded by trains / tubes / trams / buses with frequent services - but instead of condemning people, maybe think about whether your Utopia is actually achievable outside the M25.

"We've always been able to manage without, where ever we've lived. Of course it isn't possible in modern life for everyone, but a lot more could."

Where my mother lives, there is one bus a week to the nearest small town (no supermarket), and one bus a week to a big town, further away, that does have a supermarket.

My mum is utterly reliant on lifts from friends with cars to get her to GP appointments (she has chronic conditions needing regular GP visits) - it is simply not possible for her to get her appointments for the time that the one bus a week goes to the little local town where her GP is - not to mention the fact that the surgery is on the edge of town, and the bus drops off and picks up in the middle of town - and due to a disintegrating spine, my mum cannot walk from the bus stop to the surgery.

There really are places in the UK where you cannot be without a car.

Another contributory factor to the rise in car ownership and use, is the way towns are being planned now - the rise of the out-of-town supermarkets, and the death of the high street/local small shops means that it is no longer possible for many people to walk to a local shop to pick up a few bits of shopping - I live in a village near Paisley, and whilst we do have a Co-op store, it is too far away for me to walk - the village has grown over recent decades by the addition of new estates round the periphery - all houses with no services like shops etc. There is a bus service that runs through the estate I live on, and goes past the Co-op, but the buses are infrequent and expensive - and a simple trip to pick up a pint of milk could take me over an hour, and cost me more than the petrol - why would I do that?

Because it's easy and people are lazy.
Did you read any of the thread?

Its the world we live in now. Look how 1930's developments were, with a butchers, bakers and green grocers within walking distance of homes. People walked to the shops daily to pick up their bits and pieces. Maybe once a month going into a bigger town on the bus to pick up anything else.
You just cannot do that easily now. Very few villages have the butchers, bakers, green grocers now.
Workers lived walking distance or short bus ride from your home. Children went to the local school, which was walking distance.
At weekends and school holidays bus company ran special bus's for day trips to the seaside.

Now we are encouraged to find work miles from our homes, send your child to the best school which may be a drive away, house prices rocketing means you have to buy miles out from where your family, work etc are so you have to drive.

I wish I lived within walking distance of a butchers, bakers and greengrocers - I am a SAHM, and I would happily walk to the shops each day, or every other day, to buy what I need for the upcoming meals - but because of where I live, it is easier to do a big, weekly shop and hope that I remember everything I need - and that means we do waste food.

I'd be fitter, and we'd be better off as a family, if we had decent shops within walking distance.

The thing is, in the UK our society is designed and built around the assumption that most people will own a car, and will use it for the majority of their journeys. Public transport is (mostly) privately run for profit, and so is often patchy, unreliable and expensive. Cycle infrastructure is inadequate, poorly maintained, and often the choice is between cycling on a poorly converted footpath (where you'll get shouted at by pedestrians) or cycling on the road (where you'll get shouted at by drivers). In some places, there's not even a pavement to walk alongside the road.

If we did the sensible thing and designed our society to accommodate walking and cycling, and invested in public transport, then people would feel like not driving was a viable option. In the Netherlands, the percentage of trips cycled is around 30%, even in the hilly regions (yes, they have hills!), which eases a huge amount of pressure, particularly as parents don't need to provide a taxi service for their kids. But you get the country you design for, and the UK has designed for driving, so people feel that they need to drive.

Because I want to and it makes my life easier.

*FuckingLiability Sun 05-Jul-15 23:44:51

No, it's because you started a goady thread about driving, and are clearly trying to whip up an argument based on your own assumptions that people are selfish for doing it.*

Bravo .

I do not drive anymore but I used to have a car. If I went into town (especially Christmas) I would get a bus as was cheaper than parking plus of course car parks get packed leading up to Christmas.

Where does it end though? Wouldn't t be hypocritical of someone who is all pious about how little they drive to be happy to buy goods that have been shipped thousands of miles.