AIBU to ask you to read this, and then think twice before you make any unnecessary journeys by car?

[ArcheryAnnie]

I'm not talking about those essential trips where you are transporting a wardrobe/tools of the trade/someone with mobility difficulties/fourteen tiny children/etc etc etc. I'm talking about all those local trips where it's just you, and you aren't going far, and walking might add on a bit of time to your chores, but walking or cycling would also avoid one more car on the road for that day.

(I so, so feel for the grieving mother in this story, below. I live on a main road and now that I've learned more about things like this, I really worry about the effect that it's had on my son's lung development when he was smaller.)

Court ruling about nine year old who died of an asthma attack.

"...lawyers for the family presented new evidence to the attorney general that directly linked Ella’s serious form of asthma and her death with the heavy traffic on the South Circular near her home. Her death coincided with one of the worst air pollution surges in her local area."

www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/07/mother-asthma-death-girl-knew-nothing-toxic-air-ella-kissi-debrah-london?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Something we CAN do, and this is even less popular than reducing car use, is to stop using wood burners. The particles they emit are horrendous for asthma sufferers. I don’t understand why they aren’t banned in urban areas. My hair smelt like I’d been standing next to a bonfire after an evening run last week.

@Dillo10 .... or asking people to use paper straws when nearly all of the plastic in the ocean is discarded fishing nets.

The way to reduce pollution from car emissions is to make driving and car ownership so prohibitively expensive that people are forced to think of alternatives

I'd like to see improvments to public transport first.

I live 2.5 miles from the nearest supermarket, 1.8 miles from the railway station. The last 0.75 mile of the journey back includes a 300' uphill climb.

We have a bus service. The first bus into town is at 11.11 am, and the last bus back is at 17.47. The buses run at odd intervals, every 90 minutes, then a 2-hour gap when the bus is used as a school bus, then half-hourly for the last 90 minutes. The service is no use whatsoever to commuters, and precious little use to anyone else. And this isn't rural, I live on the edge of a town in the SE with a population of 20,000 or so people.

Oh, and it's a flat fare of £3.20, so £6.40 for the round trip.

I'd love to be able to use my car less, and when we had half-hourly buses from 7.30 to 19.00, I often used to get the bus to go to the doctor, shops or whatever, but it's just not feasible or economical any more.

I'll be getting my free bus pass next year, but it'll be pretty useless without a decent bus service to use it on.

@Circusoflove

Something we CAN do, and this is even less popular than reducing car use, is to stop using wood burners. The particles they emit are horrendous for asthma sufferers. I don’t understand why they aren’t banned in urban areas. My hair smelt like I’d been standing next to a bonfire after an evening run last week.

I thought Sadiq Khan was planning to ban them in London, but then never heard more.

I was thinking of getting one.

But I won't if they are so damaging.

Well I live on the sticks. I walk where I can otherwise I drive. I much prefer to walk but try yelling that to my boss during covid when I’m expected to drive further afield to more distant locations.
As for public transport...... let’s just say we don’t all have it on tap. Some of us have to walk a mile just to get a bus to work, now carting all my work gear.

I can't help but think alot of this traffic wouldn't exist if children just walked to their nearest schools.

yanbu
we got rid of our car at the beginning of this year. we noticed that we really only use it once a year to go on holiday. and even that would be possible with a mixture of train and rental car.

lots of people were shocked when we told them.

now we only need to figure out rental car companies that don't keep cars for a couple of months...

@Tomorrowistomorrow, the rise in council tax is because central government funding to local authorities has been cut by around 60% since 2010. Councils have had to cut services and make up the shortfall from council tax, and at a time where the spending on adult social care has massively increased because people are living longer.

and people in buit up area who use a wood burning stove deserve a special place in hell

Horrible whataboutery here from some posters.

1. Isn't the point that in urban areas we need planning TO CREATE the low-car environments that will benefit us all? We aren't there yet - and it won't necessarily be comfortable getting there, but the job of planners and modellers is to get us there.

1. Low-car not NO-car. Cars are utterly brilliant and amazing and essential for some - they are engines of freedom. But when everyone has one, and many people use them for short journeys, they encroach too much on space and freedom and health.

1. Most journeys aren't essential, they really really aren't. It may feel like that - most business travel felt like that pre-Covid - but they just aren't.

1. This post is really about London (and other really major cities). In my home borough, only about 30% of households have cars at all, but most trips that those cars (which are disproportionately owned by the better off) make, are of less than 3 miles.

1. YES YES to making public transport cheaper, but also YES YES to making parking FAR more expensive (and charging 24 hour/day, on ALL spaces - high street, supermarket, out of town retail park). The price for parking for an hour should be set at a minimum of double the (much reduced, to make it more affordable) return bus fare.

Outside of London a car is essential. When my kids were small even simple things such as swimming lessons required a car. I held out until my eldest was 6 but it was meaning she was missing out on lots of opportunities. I also have a back problem so carrying shopping is not a sensible option. Where I live now it's 15 mins down the motorway to the shops and the bus service was cancelled in March permanently. Whilst the situation with this little girl is sad, it's not a simple case of pollution killed her, she had severe asthma, even kids in the countryside have asthma. I'm off to buy groceries on foot today because dd is home from university to help me, but never look at a 40 something and assume they aren't harbouring a hidden disability!

@corythatwas

The problem is the London centric idea that people are using cars unnecessarily, we use them because we don't have a choice, it's condescending to assume we are choosing driving over walking, cycling or public transport.

[quote movingonup20]@corythatwas

The problem is the London centric idea that people are using cars unnecessarily, we use them because we don't have a choice, it's condescending to assume we are choosing driving over walking, cycling or public transport.[/quote]
Exactly.

Sorry, but people with access to the London transport network don't know they're born.

I was watching some programme about the problem of homelessness in London. The voiceover person referred to people riding the nightbuses because it was warm and dry. But there was some issues about the buses 'only' coming every half an hour in the middle of the night.

Outside London, a bus every half an hour is often the best you can hope for in peak commuting time and as for a bus between about 11 pm and 5 am, you're more likely to see fairies in your garden.

it's condescending to assume we are choosing driving over walking, cycling or public transport.

it's not when study after study shows that most car journeys are less than 3 miles and in most cases only one person is in the car.

Most of my journeys are short and just me. I am not disabled in any way. I agree people with good public transport in their well designed cities have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to those living rurally or even in the suburbs.

Presumably those of you living in rural areas that need a car for shopping and dropping kids of etc are also not driving in areas of high traffic?

This is more relevant to city dwellers. Where I live we have a great public transport system. Improvements across the board as well as long distance public transport would help.

I guess it's relative, it cost me £8 to get to Marylebone and back by tube, would have cost much less in my car. (Not that I would drive).

Not with parking it wouldn’t! (I assume you wouldn’t be driving there then turning around and coming straight back?)

and people in buit up area who use a wood burning stove deserve a special place in hell

@pinkbalconyrailing And I assume you think that anyone who makes unnecessary journeys by car or takes long haul flights when going on holiday also deserves a “special place in hell”?

I’ve lived in four towns and cities outside London and in all of them managed without a car. It is possible in other parts of the country, just not in the countryside. It keeps you really fit if you walk everywhere. There are downsides of course - the wind, the rain, heavy shopping bags cutting into your hands, not so nice members of the public shouting stuff at you.

I don’t know what the answer is but if the government could find a way to make cycling safer and our cities more like Amsterdam, that would be a big help. There you see whole families cycling around with the kids in the back in covered trailers. I’d love to do that but wouldn’t feel safe here.

Showing more consideration for us cyclists would have a massive impact and you can do it sitting on your arse in your warm , dry and relatively safe vehicle. I would never ask someone to abandon their cars, but the amount of people I speak to would love to cycle but they are terrified of other drivers and with good reason.

@Dongdingdong

I guess it's relative, it cost me £8 to get to Marylebone and back by tube, would have cost much less in my car. (Not that I would drive).

Not with parking it wouldn’t! (I assume you wouldn’t be driving there then turning around and coming straight back?)

It was in the evening and parking was free. And it was £8 each, which adds up.

Wood burning stoves are truly dreadful for particulates.
Even modern ones.

Please stop using them in London if you have one. You are damaging the health of yourself and your children in your own home as well as air quality for everyone elsr

The particulates produced are particularly small and particularly dangerous.

Children, pregnant women and those with asthma should stay well away from them.
Honestly, it's like smoking into your baby's face. I know they look nice but they are truly dreadful and should be banned. I think in a few years it will be much more widely understood how bad they are and people will be horrified that children once sat in a room with one every evening in the same way that smoking in confined spaces with children is viewed now

Please read this is you have a wood burner or are thinking of getting one particularly if you live in a city
www.mumsforlungs.org/campaign-blog/2020/12/4/wood-burning

Ds is a brittle asthmatic, when he is well enough we walk to school because we are lucky it’s only close. But every single day we have to walk past idiots who sit with their engines running outside school - even simple steps like turning your engine off wokld make a massive difference to a local area at least.

@pinkbalconyrailing

it's condescending to assume we are choosing driving over walking, cycling or public transport.

it's not when study after study shows that most car journeys are less than 3 miles and in most cases only one person is in the car.

It's not just distance though. It's whether the road is safe to walk along. When there is no footpath and no street lights, which is common in rural areas, even in villages, you're taking your life in your hands in terms of safety as a pedestrian. And that's not to mention in the fact that vast numbers of women don't feel comfortable walking on their own in quiet areas at all, and particularly in the dark.