To say car ownership shouldn't be seen as the default

[Sidslaw]

several posts on here about financial problems, all claiming the car is "needed" and not up for discussion

People tend to set up their lives with the assumption that they will drive - surely with the climate in the stat it is in it should now be the other way around? People to set up their lives with the assumption that they will not drive, as the default.

I don't drive, I am dyspraxic, so can't and always knew I wouldn't, and it has never been an issue, as I have chosen the places I live and the jobs I do on that basis. I use public transport, walking, cycling, taxis. I have raised my family as a single mother like this, and my children ( not dyspraxic) have grown up to set up their lives the same.

There is always going to be people who rightly or wrongly think they are an exception, but surely the default should be, don't own a car, don't drive?

"manontroppo

People are somewhat missing the point. It's not about stopping all car usage. It's about targeting the 71% of trips that are under 5 miles, and ensuring they are made by bike/foot/scooter/any other sustainable mode of transport."

5 miles is actually quite a long way. Nothing perhaps in London or Manchester, where all this pie in the sky crap is dreamt up incidently, but only physically abled and fit people are walking, wheeling or cycling 5 miles. What these greens really want, is a world without disabled people, without fatties and any other undesirable that they look down their noses at.

i have a child who plus sport at a county level - getting him to games that are in other counties for 9am on a weekend morning without a car would be a nightmare - I can’t afford public transport and even if I could work / school would not allow us the time to travel the day before etc - so I drive

Yeap. The car industry combined with the insurance industry are a huge lobby group that are always going to win as long as people are incapable of working together for the greater good

Public transport prices are not fantastic but how much does it cost to buy and run a car? For those who say they can't afford the bus then how can they afford to run a car? In my experience those around me with cars spend far more than I do on transport.

Obviously it costs more to do both, but that's a different issue and hopefully opens up discussions around car shares etc.

How much do you spend each year on transport?

Around £200 a month and that includes all the money I put aside for MOT etc.

The bus is cheap but only runs once a day so it's completely useless. The trains are
too unreliable to depend on them for work.

But it is entirely possible to both drive and not own a car - I hire a vehicle when I need one

It is also possible to own a car, or several cars, and not use any of them every day.

When you look at it like that....

Car repairs: about £500 so far this year

New tyre: £80

Insurance: about £300

Tax: good question, how much IS tax?! Since it all went to dds I've lost track somewhat...let's say £160.

MOT: £40.

Service: £150.

So, that's £1230, bearing in mind it's not been a particularly troublesome car so far, I have no payments to make on it, and that I know full well it needs 2 more new tyres and a sidelight bulb when next I get paid.

And that's not including fuel, obviously.

Or parking fees.

Meanwhile, we're in a pilot area for subsidised bus fares, meaning you can travel all day for a fiver, or £20 for a week 🤔 Service is still bad, mind you. It was £2/single £3.80/ return for the buses in Bristol last week.

I own my car outright. No finance or anything on it for a few years now.

i pay £23 a month car insurance, £16 tax. About £60 a month for fuel depending what I’m doing. So monthly around £100

going off recent years it probably averages out at £300 a year maintenance.

Last year I'd say less than £2.5k for family of 5 (1 under 5). That's all transport in UK and includes 5 long distance trips.

It costs more to park near my work than it does to get a return on the bus.

It’s really disappointing that so many places such as National Trust / Wildlife Trust nature reserves, that are supposedly environmentally conscious, cannot be accessed whatsoever by public transport. There’s lots of provision for car parking but you think there would be at least one day per month where they would put on a shuttle bus to the nearest train station, so that non-car owners or those who wish to be environmentally conscious can visit these sites. But no, you can only visit by making an individual polluting car / taxi journey.

@ElleDeeCB

Whenever I've been to these kinds of places there are always coach-loads of people. Those Trusts protect the land/site, why should they put on public transport for you?

Besides, surely all these environmentally conscious people wouldn't be seen dead on a polluting bus and would cycle?

That's not bad. So if we don't count the under 5 that's about £12 per week each, £48 per week for the family.

I just worked out that in the last 6 years, including the original cost of the car, my annual costs average at £1132 per year, £22 per week, that's £11 each for me and my son. I could fit a family of 4 plus an under 5 in there if I had 3 more kids which would reduce that to £5.50 per week each.

I've never worked that out before and it seems very reasonable to be a careful car owner. I have do about 3 long distance trips per year so slightly less.

Ta @Scunnered123

Environmentally conscious doesn't mean living like a peasant and never leaving your house. By your logic, it's hypocritical to use a bike because it was made in a factory? That's dumb.

Taking a bus is very environmentally friendly.

3/4 of my grandparents drove and one of my great mothers and she was born in the 1880s !

Like I said, greens just want everyone to bow down to them. Besides, it is hypocritical to use a bike because it was made in a factory.... if you're having a go at others for doing their thing.

I'm not the one making judgements here, people are free to do what they wish as far as I'm concerned, but I certainly don't think the onus is on a Trust/Charity to provide transport for others, especially when they're clearly having a go that provision is made for 'polluting car'.

Personally I'd happily invest in the railways across the country and make things more accessible for non-drivers (which would also result in a reduction in car use imo).

But it's not an all or nothing. I happily walk or use public transport where possible but using a car means DC get to swimming at 4pm or tennis lesson after dinner. Ddog gets to walk along the beach or in the forest occasionally instead of the local park all the time. If I didn't have the car/couldn't drive then of course we wouldn't be doing these things. Of course I would adjust. But I have a car, so I'm not living my life like I don't. That still doesn't mean I use it to drive 200yards just because I could.

Those calculations aren’t the true cost of car ownership though. Drivers are reasonably heavily subsidised by the rest of society and the taxpayers - drivers don’t pay for accidents, the cost of pollution, or the cost of inactivity on population health, or the cost of running a public transport network when people choosing to use a car makes it less viable. I think a study by the EU put the subsidy at around 600€ per person per year.

And it’s a bit rich saying that greens want everyone to bow down before them - it’s the motoring lobby and car users that fight tooth and nail against any change.

The public fund all sorts of things, from benefits to the health service, etc. Why pull out figures just for impact of cars? Drivers pay huge sums in insurance, tax, etc. so I can't really agree anyway.

I do accept the latter point, historically at least, but it's really dismissive to say it's lobbyists, rather than millions of ordinary people, who oppose this stuff. It should be remembered people didn't want the changes that have led to the mass-car age to start with. No one wanted to be forced to travel miles to find work, or to travel to hypermarkets as their high-streets died. They had to pay for that change and now you're asking them to pay to reverse it all (with even less infrastructure frankly than a century ago).

I used to own a car, then I sold it. Yes, I made a concious choice to move to within a few miles of work but I love the village so it's not "limiting" as far as I'm concerned.

Wasting time looking for a free parking space in the village however was a chore. The constant worrying about what was going to go wrong next. I was driving to work at 3am when the rust holding the end of the exhaust to the chassis gave way while going over a speed bump - I had to be very careful driving in because any throttle made it sound like a boy racer. Just after it went through an MoT, including two new tyres one of them got an irreparable puncture, £50 down the drain. For the cost of one basic car tyre I can buy a pair of Kevlar bike tyres, which as well as deflecting sharp objects will take far less time to wear away because there's less weight involved. Yeah, that's stress and expense I could do without.

I like to hike too. I live just outside the National Park, with a cheap train and connecting buses. Far more convenient than trying to find somewhere to park on the Ogwen Pass: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-65216905

Even better, you can go up one side of a mountain and come back down the other. No need to repeat the same journey in reverse, you can use the bus to connect the two legs. I've even incorporated a steam train on a couple of occasions.

Friends all over the country? My family live 200 miles away. If I take the train I don't have to consider fatigue or take regular breaks, I can just nod off to sleep. I regularly take European holidays by train, I don't fancy hiring a car and dealing with the stress of driving on the wrong side of the road, with strange road signs etc.

Petrol heads have a pretty limited view of how to live

Self confessed petrol head! 1 of my cars is my toy, and 3rd car is about to join the fleet, also as a weekend toy.

i have an amazing life, purely because of my hobbies and that would not be at all possible, without driving. Certainly not a limited view! My life would be extremely limited and dull without at least 1 car.

I’m not at a horse show this weekend so we’re off for a 4 hour road trip up to the peak district with 10 friends and their 10 cars, to drive great roads camp one night, hike and then home late Sunday.

I average 22000 miles a year and i dont have a long commute to work (10 miles) so most of my miles are leisure.

Quite literally, none of my life would be possible without driving. And thats not a limited view.

Besides, it is hypocritical to use a bike because it was made in a factory.... if you're having a go at others for doing their thing.

It's hypocritical to donate to charity when you have money in your savings.

It's hypocritical to say you are about poor people when you eat food and don't give it all away.

It's hypocritical to criticise police culture/brutality/corruption yet call them for help when you're attacked.

It's hypocritical to criticise oil companies yet use them for petrol and heating, rather than walking 10 miles a day and freezing to death.

It's hypocritical to eat meat and claim to care about animals.

Basically, you're point about bikes being bad is ridiculous. Bikes and public transport are environmentally friendly and fab.

Sounds like a lot of fun @RedPony1 jealous of the horses. I also agree with @DdraigGoch that cars can be a PITA at times. Living in an urban area, driving and parking is hell.

You can still have an interesting life without a car. It can make things more limited in some ways, you can't have a road trip for, one. But you can still go to the airport and travel. Take a train to the coast. Take a train to Europe.

You can even just sit back and read a book on a train and take in your surroundings.

Redpony - to believe ones life is limited due to lack of car (as has been put forward on this thread), is in itself, limited thinking. I'm sure you have a lovely active life, but car lovers can't imagine of any other way to live