To think car ownership is out of control in the UK

[JacquesHarlow]

I fully expect to get a vast majority of "YABU" comments, but here goes:

Firstly, before I get flamed - I am a woman, a car owner, and yes I have a driveway now (though didn't before). I am a car enthusiast in terms of the enjoyment I've got from driving and I don't have an issue with "cars" per se.

What I have an issue with is how ridiculous Britain's councils and governments are on car ownership. How cheap car ownership is. How anyone can distort the living environment around them with their choices.

Have you driven down a suburban street lately, or even an urban one?

Small and narrow Victorian streets with lines of cars packed on either side, and only room for one vehicle to drive down it. Why so many cars? The houses have been there for 150 years. Why now?

And because so many people (often fellow women, annoyingly) don't ever like reversing, you find yourself caught in the middle, having to reverse right back to the end of the street to start again.

School runs are chaos - so many cars, parking up in illegal or careless ways, purely to save a short distance walking.

And the size of cars! Absurdly large vehicles which then take up more road space on the kerbside. Yeah it is "legal" but in a decade where theoretically we want to get better as a country environmentally, most people do not give two fucks as long as their precious DCs are "safe" (you're just as safe in a NCAP 5* rated Yaris as you are in a Merc GLS, but try telling that to people where I live).

So this is the madness of today:

Cars are SO much bigger. And thanks to PCP they're cheaper - and this is why I see so many cars where I live ,and up north when I visit, and everywhere else. The PCP monthlies thing keys right into the British obsession of wanting to look and feel wealthy. Years ago a Golf or an Audi A3 would be considered posh for a family. But why would I buy a Golf when my monthly payments could get me into something BIGGER!

The one thing that isn't bigger, is the United Kingdom. I've seen councils in London paint "parking lines" half on the pavement so that people can park up on either side to let cars past. I've seen people in these Discoveries and Defenders mount kerbs at drop off time without a thought or care for who might be behind them or even aware of this being an issue.

And you can have 1 household in a street of 20 houses own 5 cars. You do the maths as to how much of the available parking is then taken away.

Why are people so aggressive and discourteous in their car ownership? What are we going to do about this?

Some of us remember 20 or 30 years ago when you could drive to another street and not have to face a x5 barrelling towards you, parked cars either side? With a tiny woman peering over the steering wheel refusing to reverse back into the space immediately behind her? But powering through so that you, in your little hatchback, have to reverse 10 car lengths to accommodate her ego and lack of driving skill?

Our city and town streets are not made for X5s, Discoveries, Range Rover Sports, and god knows what else, to be parked along the kerbside blocking out the light into tiny terraced houses.

How do we put a stop to this? I love the Japanese principle in certain cities where you have to name a parking space you own or have access to before you buy a car. Could this work here?

AIBU? How will we ever wean ourselves off this 'bigger is better, and every member of my family must have a car' mentality?

Wow OP, every bingo point in one post.

Well in our London road we have to pay £550 to park outside our house. Next year it’s going up by another £200. 4 of us living in the house, just one car. Neither of the DC that interested in learning to drive.

I'm sorry to hear of your costs (to park outside your house) for just one car.

My post is generally directed at what I think is the insanity of thousands of streets in the UK being crammed to the max with large unwieldy cars, often multiple cars per household, and councils and governments just throwing their hands up and ignoring the issue because they like the revenue.

what do you think should happen, OP?

And because so many people (often fellow women, annoyingly) don't ever like reversing
Nah you lost me here. "I'm a woman. Let's do womanly stuff as women with our ladybrains" nah thanks. I find plenty of aggressive males who refuse to reverse even when I have right of way, it's not a uniquely female problem.
Also you're not right about the cost of cars, either. They're more expensive than they've ever been. Look up prices from the 1990s or 2000s before the scrappage scheme if you want proof.

Growing up we had one family car, our family now has one car, nothing has changed. My grandad had a car, a camper van and a motorbike in the 60s so he was taking up more space then!

There are many more people in the UK than 30 years ago. I do think many cars are too big for the lifestyle their owners have.

I can reverse though! (Although not really parallel park 😵‍💫)

I read that as cat ownership.

I don't think car ownership is cheap. The UK doesn't have an effective public transport system unless you are in London. All the supermarkets have now gone out of town in my area so unless you had a shopping delivery it's hard to get food without a car. It's virtually impossible to go across the county by train without going to London or Birmingham and changing. I can't see that changing so everyone replies on their cars

The problem isn't people and their cars - its the fact that councils restrict the number of parking spaces new developments can have to "encourage public transport use". Which - if you live anywhere outside of London is expensive, isn't frequent enough, and possible doesn't go quite where you need it to go!

Make public transport affordable and reliable. We have two buses a day to nearest big town. One at 1400 and the other at 1900.

My friend met me in London at weekend and paid £40 one way from Oxford to London and stood all of the way. The tube line she was wanting to use was closed with replacement buses so she used another tube line and added 30 mins to her journey.

Never travel on a Sunday. The rail unions have got such mammouth pay rises for their members no one wants to work Sunday - so they dont!

THAT I WHY I WONT USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT!

"Why so many cars? The houses have
been there for 150 years. Why now?"

Um...because cars weren't invented in 1875?
Sorry if that's a trite answer but tbh its a weird question to which the only obvious answer is a "stating the bleeding obvious" response.
What are you actually asking?
If its why do so many people own cars its because they can afford to and the alternatives (public transport) are crap.
If you want fewer people to own cars they need to be made so expensive people can't afford them AND a working alternative needs to be available. This would cost billions so chances of the government doing it are zero.

So what you are saying is, you are allowed to own and enjoy a car but other people, particularly those in terraced houses are not?

I suspect the main differences are, now most households have two working adults who require transport to work. Public transport is as unreliable as it’s ever been. Children have more hobbies than ever as playing outside isn’t as good as it used to be (more cars 🤣, plus houses built on lots of green land). Children don’t always go to the closest school anymore and parents are usually travelling in to work, not walking back home to their very local house.

@JacquesHarlowhi, I agree. I also think they've made walking about as a pedestrian more dangerous as they're so big they often drive over the corner of the pavement where I'm stood waiting to cross, if I was not aware and hadn't moved away, they could easily drive over my feet. I worry about children here. You also can't see over the top (unless you're really tall) and so they can come out of nowhere, it's like having a load of vans parked up, blocking the view. And if you got knocked over by one you'd be fucked, they're like tanks. Why are they all so massive? It's v strange.

In victorian times no one had a car, even if every other household had 1 car, that's more than the street was designed for.
But in many areas a car is a necessity due to the absence of suitable public transport.
What should happen? Can you only live in a victorian terrace if you commit to never owning a car?

Kinda agree with you on the size of cars, even though my car is a transit van as my daily driver - most people do not need massive vehicles, or brand new vehicles every 3 years.

It cannot be ecologically sound to keep building new cars when old cars work just as well.

I'm unsure you're not just being goady but re. multiple cars per household, it's because cars are cheaper than houses. Hth

Local councils to look at proper solutions (and NOT LTNs, which don't actually deal with the amount of ownership, but just funnel it elsewhere for those who loved lockdowns and like flower planters).

Some potential solutions:

• Ensure CPZs in a 1 mile radius of any major town.
• Not all CPZs limit the number of permits per household. I would limit it to 2 per household MAXIMUM, with a tapering effect so by 2030 it is 1 car per household.
• Increase the costs for permits so that serial multiple car owners have to really think whether they want to pay £3k a year to park 5 random old bangers on a street
• Surcharge for permits on any petrol or diesel vehicle over 1.5kg in weight. This would tax some of the 10 or 15 year old Discoveries and Range Rovers off the streets.

I live on a london borough. Costs me over £600 a year for a parking permit to park it on the street outside my house. If I drive it anywhere and need to park it anytime between 9am - 6pm Monday to Friday, it is incredibly hard to find any parking parking, and if I do, it’s likely £4 or more per hour. I’d say my council is doing everything it can to try to stop people owing cars, which I find really annoying.

And even in London, public transport can be horrendous.

I don’t mean the connectability, I mean the absolutely frightening weirdo men on buses and Tubes. No, thanks.

I don't need "proof" - I know cars are way more expensive in the 2020s.

But we're not comparing apples with oranges.

So few people pay the sticker price or pay cash. So the "list price" is irrelevant.

Most new car buyers get a dealer contribution, a discount on the list price, and then all the buyer wants to know are the montly payments.

So yeah , years ago no one would even contemplate a £50,000 KIA (!)

But they don't have to. They just have to know if they can afford £350 a month. Which a fair few people can.

Yes, the number of cars on the road is at a record high.

41.7 million licenced vehicles at the end of June 2024.

It's insane. Especially for such a small country with plenty of public transport available.

The problem is lack of alternatives for large swathes of people. It's OK for those in London and a handful of other big cities with excellent public transport, but out in the regions, public transport is often expensive, unreliable and not adequate.

Once, and only once, we get back to having a far better national public transport system can we start thinking about reducing/restricting car ownership.

There are far too many areas where people can't use buses to get to/from work (as they don't start early nor finish late enough for shift workers, don't run via out of town industrial estates and business parks, etc).

Far too many areas where you can't use a bus to get home after a night out because the the last bus is mid evening, so too early for theatre goers etc. Similar with poor/non existent weekend or Sunday services so you can't use a bus to go shopping or for attractions etc on Sundays etc.

All of these "solutions" punish the lowest earners/poorest.

Public transport is too unreliable and no air conditioning

But we don't have "plenty of public transport" outside the handful of major cities.