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?

Great.

However it's incredibly dangerous to ride bikes in many parts of the country, so for lots of people it's not even an option.

You seem extremely concerned about the environment and very proud that your children also seem to be. You also seem proud / seem to be saying that where you live and such were active choices to protect the environment. With that in mind, can I ask why you made the active choice to have children?

@Instinct1 - good question!

OP previously ignored the question about having kids. 🤔

It's not incredibly dangerous at all - the health benefits far out weight the risk of cycling, and you would have to cycle around the world at its widest point 1000 times, before you were likely to be killed once.

And the reason it is dangerous, is because of motorised vehicles (which incidentally are a big risk factor for horse riders as well). In what other areas of society do we reward the behaviours that cause the most damage?

The privilege and ignorance of this is astounding. Do you not realise that many people have to move out of convenient city locations as they can’t afford to live there?

I used to live in a compact city and cycled everywhere as I could. I now live in the outskirts with kids and public transport is shit. I have to drive, everyone here does. I bloody hate driving everywhere and being inactive because of it. I loved being active just as part of how I got about.

Plus you are basically saying everyone needs to live in a city. Fuck rural communities, eh?

We live in a rural village with no OU lic transport or shop. We have one car but no car payments. Having a car here is needed but having a new car with payments isn't.

Well, if you want to go cycling on windy, hilly NSL roads that are barely wide enough for two cars, you knock yourself out.

Cars are essential where I live, bikes are not.

Learning to drive and buying a car is one of the best things I ever did.

The main thing for me is being able to work in places outside the town where I live, which would be completely inaccessible via public transport. This was key when I was made redundant and jobs were in short supply during lockdown. I can get where I need to be when I need to be there so I can earn a living.

The planet isn't my responsibility. I do my bit and will be more than happy to buy a more environmentally friendly vehicle when the government pulls its fingers out of its arse and sets up the proper infrastructure to support environmentally friendly vehicles.

So for now, I'm happy to be safe, on time for work, and dry and warm in my car.

Life isn’t a soap where everyone’s lives are in one place and where everyone has great transport on their doorstep.

Good for you that you have managed to arrange your life in a way that you don’t need a car but for a majority a car is essential.

There is a lot bigger picture then moving to where everything is on your doorstep that others have tried to explain on here but you don’t seem to be getting or are ignoring.

would you like it if someone told you having kids shouldn’t be seen as the default?

what a ridiculous post

it's time for cars to stop dominating our lives, that's not ridiculous at all

Rubbish.

The 2 mile country road to my work is narrow and has steep hedges on both sides - right up to and often overhanging the road. To make it safe these hedges would need to be cut back - which would effectively remove them. Much more destructive to wildlife.

I cycled to work for 2 years and was nearly killed almost twice a day. 3 people were killed on that route in 4 years. It's a sustrans route too.

Nearly killed by buses I meant to add!

We have no buses and as I said upthread a taxi to the nearest town is £15...so just getting to work and back via taxi for 1 week is £150, which is more than the cost of me running my car for a month.

But I couldn't have the life I want, and work hard for, without a car. Not sure why that's hard to understand? There are masses of people like me.

I couldn't imagine living such a life where everything i wanted to do was just 'around me'

You are not ridiculous. Some people need cars. Most people have cars for convenience.
We both work from home some days and go into the office others. I can take a bus or bike and OH can take train or bike to work. He almost always bikes. I do a mix of bus and car depending on whether or not I want to fit in shopping on way home. We live near a local train station so can get into town that way easily and we can walk to parks/the coast. There will be a limited number of people who live near us who do require a car because they maybe do shift work and wouldn’t be able to get public transport to get in on time or they couldn’t make it to work on time after school drop offs but most people are same as us and have a car because it’s a bit more convenient. I can’t really think of anyone we know locally who doesn’t have at least one family car.
A good starting point would be having alternatives that made giving up a car make sense for families like ours in locations like ours (so urban or in suburban towns with half decent public’s transport).
For me what stops me ditching the car is:

• Being able to get kids from school to after school activities with time to feed them in between, which I can’t manage on public transport
• Being able to easily visit parents who are a 50 minute drive or 2-2.5 hour train/bus journey away
• Being able to get to kids away games for their sport easily
• Bring able to decide on a whim to go to local national trust place or a castle or for a country walk
• being able to do a run to the tip or collect larger purchases

I think as well since we already have the car for individual trips it’s just so much cheaper than any other option. Sunk costs are already spent and the petrol is a lot less than the bus fare (particularly for short journeys)

We need a carrot approach to get people to give up cars. Better investment in public transport, more trans/trains (that run on time and have capacity), cheaper fares to do small distances on public transport, better season ticket options (reapplying London approach to other cities would likely help. Here bus is multiple companies and train separate so if you do individual journeys on 2 providers to get somewhere it just gets stupidly expensive), more social & affordable housing in urban areas. In parallel you have to gradually make it less and less convenient to take the car, particularly for short journeys.
It is something we would benefit from if we could collectively change alongside flying/travelling long distance less, heating homes more efficiently, consuming less mass produced disposable stuff (particularly when it’s shipped round the world to get to us) etc. It isn’t easy to change though and there is a cost associated with it as people rely on us buying cars and travel and loads of stuff for their livelihoods. It’s a very hard sell for us all to accept we might just have to have less now if we want the quality of life for our children/grandchildren to be better. It’s easier (& not entirely unreasonable or unrealistic) to hope we will identify technologies that resolve environmental issues so we don’t have to make such big changes to our lifestyle.

I don't disagree, there are many advantages to people walking and cycling more and driving less. But for that to happen there needs to be massive investment in the infrastructure. Do we think any political party in the UK will do that?

Of course it's not ridiculous, but it's also not going to happen unless some major changes are made to our infrastructure and the way our lives are run.

There are also lots of people who will always depend on cars for a variety of reasons, yet on threads like these they're always vilified when they dare to point it out.

Carers, shift workers, builders, electricians, plumbers, farmers, dog walkers (to name a few) - they all need transport or else they can't work. Add in people who are disabled, people who live in areas with no public transport etc. and suddenly that's quite a large part of the population.

Buses wouldn't get stuck in traffic for one thing. Increased use of public transport would also lead to more frequent services to keep up with demand.

Bully for you I guess.

Just because you can't/don't want a car, doesn't mean everyone who has a car has somehow failed to "set their lives up" correctly. You sound really condescending.

I don’t disagree with you OP. We are at the start of a very difficult period of adjusting to the changes that are going to (eventually) be imposed upon us by necessity. We are going to have fewer choices in the future. People who ‘couldn’t bear’ to do XYZ - whether it’s living in a town/city, using communal transport, having their children share a room in a smaller house, stop eating meat, etc - will eventually not be given the choice. It will be imposed on them, one way or the other.

the problem right now is that the pressure to make the change is being put on people, before the solutions have been developed and put in place. Only when excellent, reliable, comfortable public transport is available can we expect people to give up their personal transport. The great mass of people are not going to sacrifice their lifestyles for the greater good unless the alternative is so good it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. public luxury, private sufficiency.

Isn't the long term scenario electric self driving cars charged by smart tarmac/wireless hotspots driving around continuously (no parking required) and available to be hired via an app so one is never far away. No need for car ownership, no need for a driveway or on street parking or car parks. Won't be soon but I could see it in 50 years or so or sooner in countries with more modern road network.

Exactly, all those parked cars taking up road space, not being driven most of the time, it's crazy, car sharing schemes are the way foward

Stop being so sensible!

One whiff of "cars should be the last resort, not the first choice" and everyone is screaming about how it'll be the end of civilisation as we know it.

90% of the population live in urban areas, and the remaining 10% includes any settlement of up to 10k people, so not exactly the back of beyond in many cases. Public transport is lacking in this country, certainly, as is cycling infrastructure. If more people made the switch (doesn't have to be for every journey, every little helps) then not only would public transport provision increase to match demand, but buses wouldn't get stuck in traffic.