to feel car driving is frequently unjustified

[Clairetree1]

Having sat in a traffic jam yesterday, in which I counted 10 buses being held up by around 45 cars, many of which only had one person in.

So say 60 people in cars holding up 600 people in buses....

just as a snapshot, throughout the whole journey, each person in a car seems to hold up 10 people in a bus, and if the cars were not there, those car travelers could easily fit on the buses, and everyone would be moving at least 3x as fast,

and I can't really see how this is allowed, or can be justified.

If you are in a city, or in another area with an adequate bus route, and are physically able to use the bus, how do you justify to yourself the danger, inconvenience and lethal pollution you subject everyone else to? Not to mention the further damage to the environment caused by concreting over parking spaces, car manufacture, etc.

I know some people are going to say they need the time, but if cars were banned from our cities and more people on public transport, everyone would be moving faster.

I know some people are going to say they are disabled, or have too much to carry, but some people who are disabled or have a lot to carry do use buses, they often have no choice! it doesn't automatically preclude you.

I know some people are just going to say they have a right to, but really, do you? Pollution is killing thousands of people a year in the UK, not to mention those killed in car crashes, the environmental damage done including global warming, and the sheer inconvenience to everybody else.

I know a couple of cities are planning on banning private cars, and I know petrol cars are on their way out, so things might well improve, but I just don't understand how we reached this position in the first place, so much death and destruction and time taken away by an entitled privileged few with such a selfish habit I can't understand how they justify to themselves.

I don't expect many people to agree with me, I think this privilege is so deeply ingrained in our culture that people genuinely feel they have a right to drive cars, when perfectly adequate public transport exist.

I don't think there is any moral right at all though, I think it is morally wrong in every way

OP is clearly able-bodied, lives relatively close to work, and can afford to use her local reliable public transport system. She has given zero thought to the circumstances of anyone who doesn't fit her own personal model.

And she still refuses to address the argument about children!

In other words people who are rich enough to own and use a car now, when many people can't, are not in a position to complain if the cost of car use rises out of their range, and only people richer than them can use cars unnecessarily, as they were only able to use cars unnecessarily in the first place because of being richer than other people who couldn't. They can't accept it is only for people of a certain income when that works in their favour, then say that's not fair when they are no longer in that income bracket themselves!

I had to read that a few times to make sense of it. Having and using a car doesn't deem someone rich for goodness sake. Is this what it's all about, you can't afford a car?

Yes to what borlottibeans said.

OP, stay off the subject until you have lived rurally and understand at least some of the issues.

'If I lived in London or somewhere with good public transport'

My comment below about a 45 minute commute in the car being 2 hours on public transport is in London. If you're not going straight into or out of the centre, public transport can be very poor.

I can afford to run the car. I couldn’t afford to run the car (which I need) and use public transport!

@Clairetree1 Why did you have two children? Presumably because you wanted them. You didn't need them. If you were so concerned about the environment and pollution, you wouldn't have had any. I chose not to have children, so I have not added to the pollution problem. You've had two, so you've added two more humans to continue polluting the planet.

During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion. In 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now. Growth rates are, thankfully, declining, and it will now take "just" over 200 years to double again.

I once had this argument with a green campaigner who was protesting about waste and pollution and the damage to the environment. Who had four children. And you can bet most of them will end up buying a car. So whose doing the damage?

If you'd have seen me in that queue, you'd have seen me probably alone in a huge car and judged me too.
What you wouldn't have seen is the contents of my boot, heavy, bulky equipment, drug fridge, trollies etc which I require for work.
Wrt to 9-5 jobs in city centres, I do think a lot more could be done nationwide to encourage car shares, pool lane incentives, better public transport. But lots of us don't fit that mould.
Oh and sorry, getting the bus camping. Nope.

@clairetree but not out of the realms of expectation for the majority of the UK population.

If we're talking about world population then the majority of things we use on a daily basis are out of the financial reach of the majority of the world's population. Keep it in perspective

The operative word being chavs. Not everyone who lives in a council house is a chav. Don’t make assumptions

Eh? The CH in Chav LITERALLY stands for Council House. I think you need to learn the meaning of words before using them.

of course only rich people own and use cars! They are expensive luxuries.Beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world's population!

You don't live in the real world, do you OP? My car cost £400. It doesn't have tax, my insurance is £12 a month and I spend about £30 a month in fuel. I'm very poor. I don't know anyone without a car and they are all normal people, many on minimum wage. To suggest that a car is for rich people is just bizarre.

I know other people made the same point as me but the OP seems to be ignoring it, so I thought I'd address it directly to her.

I'm on near minimum wage, but need my (second hand, 10 year old) car (as previously pointed out). This means that I have no money left over for any "luxuries". Your reasoning is mad!

I can see the point you are trying to make but I think you have oversimplified you argument re convenience. Many places to do not have good public transport links that can get you to almost anywhere in a reasonable time frame. For example, if you have to do school or childcare drop off's before work and on the way back. That may mean several bus journeys and if time is tight that is unlikely to be practical. I'm sure some people do it out of necessity, but it could be impossible for others.

I live rurally and could not get a bus to work as there are none that would be me there early enough- they simply don't exist (and would have to walk nearly 10 miles to the nearest village to catch the bus if I was not allowed/able to use my car) - that is not uncommon. Also there is an even poorer weekend/evening/night service so those working weekends or shifts couldn't manage to get to work or home again.

I work shifts, sometimes finishing late at night or early in the morning (i.e. could be due to finish at 9/10pm but sometimes run over by several hours), as a junior we used to have other shift patterns where we would finish late into the evening/finish 11pm/midnight and so on. The buses after 10pm aren't great here (at least, definitely not from the hospital). I used to live in the city when I was younger and newly qualified- before I got a car it meant adding on at least 30 minutes to my journey, frequently more as I had to get more than one bus and had to wait between journeys- often in the dark at night and one wait between buses was not in an especially busy place. I hated it, often felt quite vulnerable and I was tired and wanted to get home. Getting a car made my life better and safer.

So, perhaps if you live somewhere with excellent transport links, work usual office hours and don't have additional complications such as childcare/school drop off etc then the bus is a reasonable option. For many people, it just isn't as public transport currently stands.

Some buses are hybrid but most chuck out huge amounts of old wally from their exhausts so I fail to see how they are more environmentally friendly than a car

ideally, all buses would be hybrid, or environmentally friendly, and its true some are not.

But their main advantage is that one bus can easily replace 50 cars, so a GINORMOUS reduction in pollution being produced

I'm afraid my quality of life is vastly vastly improved by using a car rather than publ c transport.

Take your camping example. We've just been camping. By taking a car (a big one) we could take bikes, canoes, kettle bbq, fridge, boogie boards, decent tent, quilts, pillows etc we had a great holiday. I'm not sure how much stuff you could carry on public transport but wouldn't be much more than a tent and sleeping bags probably. Totally different holiday.

However, yes, in city centres where the public transport is decent, yes, I would like a ban on public cars. Pedestrianised centres are nicer anyway.

I live in a rural market town and work in my nearest city, 15 miles away. To get to work by public transport would take 1 hr 40 minutes. 2 buses with a 20 minute walk at either end and the buses are operated by different companies so I'd need to fork out for 2 separate tickets. I need to be at my desk by 9 at the latest. The drive takes 35 minutes on a good day but can often be a lot longer. My youngest son's nursery opens at 8 but I pay an extra £10 a day to drop him off at 7.45. My eldest's school breakfast club opens at 8. I can't afford to pay through the nose for extra wrap around care for them. And I can forget getting home on public transport in time to collect them. My husband can't do pick up or drop off because of his work hours.

I don't have any colleagues or friends who do the same commute at the same time. I've signed up on lift share websites and Facebook groups and got no interest.

As for working closer to home, it would be lovely if life was that simple. Currently the only vacancies being advertised in my town are for a cleaner for a couple of hours a week (a couple of hours won't pay enough) or assorted care or self employed courier positions, all of which require a car.

If public transport was a practical option I would take it. Unfortunately it's just not.

Do you not think it boils down to the fact that our small island is overpopulated, too many people, too many cars on the road.

Pickledcabbage

Some of the comments on here about the type of people who take public transport are just vile, condescending and classist. It's a real eye-opener.

This ^ Plus I don't know where you lot live, but I get the bus almost daily, often with young DCs, and don't recognise these descriptions of my fellow bus passengers at all! Mostly i find its students, other parents with their kids and a large contingent of retired people who will often coo at the baby and keep him occupied on the journey. And just in case you were wondering, I myself am extremely well- bred, have 2 postgrad degrees, and so far have managed to restrain myself from swearing, urinating and other anti-social behaviour when on the bus

If we're talking about world population then the majority of things we use on a daily basis are out of the financial reach of the majority of the world's population. Keep it in perspective

we do have to keep a global perspective on this though, we are one of the rich privileged countries which are destroying the atmosphere and causing global warming and polluting the planet for everybody else.

And the fact that a few other countries may be worse doesn't absolve us!

Clairetree Fresh running water and good sanitation could also be said to be beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world's population Should we forgo that too? You are being deliberately goady and disingenuous, as well as very ignorant about the UK transport system outside London. For many the time/ distance equation precludes the use of public transport.

As pp have pointed out, you have kids. Far more damaging to the planet than cars. FYI, it is diesel that is on their way out, not petrol.

Chav doesn’t necessarily mean that...

In the 2010 book Stab Proof Scarecrows by Lance Manley, it was surmised that "chav" was an abbreviation for "council housed and violent".[12] This is widely regarded as a backronym, a constructed acronym created to fit an existing word

of course only rich people own and use cars!

You are living in cloud cuckoo land! That is a totally ridiculous statement.

Actually I agree, if we had more and better bus /train id take them more often. Also v expensive here.

You do realise that people in poorer countries than ours have cars too? I have travelled to a number of developing countries and I can tell you they have far bigger traffic and congestion problems than we do.

And let’s not forget how many people are time poor, so will sacrifice the cost of a car to not have to waste half their day sat on a bus when they need that time for other much more important things

Raising, say doubling or tripling petrol prices for private cars may lesson car use

And that would stop almost everyone I work with being able to work. I work in the NHS, how do you propose we would deal with 3x petrol prices and night shifts? Most of the nurses I work with have - very delicately balanced budget.
My DH often does house visits, driving between his dying patients. I’ll tell him to get the non-existent bus.

We live in a major city but the routes don’t exist and they certainly don’t after 6pm.