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?

Correct in saying many streets are littered with vehicles, but take a walk down a majority of those streets in my local town and you'll soon discover that these vehicles are unregistered, few months left of or untaxed and uninsured due to car traders using not only these streets, but private parking areas as their own personal 'garage forecourts'.

Once in a blue moon the DVLA will do a sweep and have the untaxed one's towed, police will stick a "police aware" notice on the uninsured but still they sit there, but fear not the trader will have another car to slot into the empty space when the DVLA have moved on.

So yes in this instance car ownership is cheap.

Those on the other hand that pay Vehicle Excise Duty, Insurance costs and MOT may have differing opinions to car ownership being cheap.

I think you must be quite young or have a very bad memory. I've been driving for 40 years and people making very similar complains about parking since long before I passed my tests. It's over 20 years since I did school runs and the Chelsea Tractor mums were a a menace back then.

And I don't think cars are cheap. They are expensive to run and to maintain.

My sister has one! A bloody great big Discovery. And she can't reverse it to save her life! Before this she had a saloon with a button you could press to make the car parallel park itself.

She does live in the country but she never drives off road so it's completely unnecessary. There's loads of tight roads around there where you're almost in the hedge when trying to pass a other vehicle so it just doesn't make sense. I'm convinced the local farmers probably all hate her as there's no way she's reversing up for a tractor. 🤣

Yes I agree, it is out of control. That being said alot of places have literally no public transport so people don’t have a choice.

Something does need to be done about it though. Some of the huge vehicles we have available now should only be allowed for business use in my opinion, and to tax and insure one you have to have a vat registered manual labour business that requires the use of a car that size to store tools/equipment etc. Range Rovers are a example, they should be limited to farm/off road use only, there’s no need for a car of that size to be on the road for domestic purposes, particularly considering most of the people driving them are incapable of doing so properly. Same as Nissan Nirvaras (think it’s what they are called), they are huge pick up type trucks, made for American size roads and you just have people going to Tesco overhanging the spaces because it’s too big to fit. Completely unnecessary.

I also think the government need a complete overhaul of the road tax and insurance systems. Every house should get a 2 car allowance and any further vehicles registered to an address after that your tax and insurance increases. It would make people think twice about owning 6 cars but a house with no where to park them!

Cars have definitely got bigger though. My Polo GTI in 2016 was bigger than the first Golfs. And of course we have this hybrid suv trend atm.

I would be interested to hear from city dwelling people who drive the huge cars about why they do it. It will be hard to change behaviour without understanding this.

I remember thinking when that tragic incident in the school in Wimbledon happened that if that woman had been driving a normal car then those children probably wouldn't have died. 😥 Driving a 2 tonne vehicle around tiny streets by a school should not happen.

Hahaha, you have never lived in a village in the UK the OP. Most places near me you wouldn't be able to get to work without a car due to the poor public transport. You'd think it would be better in town but DD has to either walk some distance or get two different buses to college taking over an hour. For a trip in a car that would take less then 15 minutes.

The public transport is a joke here, oh and if you want a train almost anywhere even only an hour away it's at lest one change. To get across country to my Dad's it's 3 train changes minimum. And if you miss one of those you can be stuck for hours, once took me over 8 hours due to delays and I still hadn't reached my destination, at which point I rang OH and said please come get me. I couldn't stand to wait another hour for another delayed train.

I would say it isn’t about cars. It’s about reliable and affordable public transport not being available to most of the country. It’s about time pressed parents who need to both work so don’t have time to walk to school on the school run.
It ultimately comes down to money and infrastructure

I don’t look to the government to give me what I want. 🤷‍♀️

I live near several roads of pretty Edwardian terrace houses. Until a few years ago all had little front gardens but now the vast majority have been paved over to park cars which also overlap the pavements. The council decided to change planning rules, despite previously stating that concreting front gardens were a flooding hazard.

And oddly whilst it was men that always wanted big cars (X5, Range Rover, etc) the hybrid suv market is very popular with women nowadays. Things like the Nissan Juke.

What public transport?

FWIW I don't drive (vision issues) so when choosing a house I made sure it was near a busy bus route; ditto my son who's disabled, for whom a nearby bus was essential

Both now gone, and yet STILL the council bleat on about "encouraging the use of public transport" while more and more routes are cancelled, merely parroting silly stock phrases when this is pointed out

At least with tax you can do some good with other peoples idiocy.

We need to fund public transport. No ifs, no buts.

We're a non-car-owning household, in large part due to my lifelong environmental principles and in part because neither of us could afford lessons as teenagers. I cycle everywhere instead. It has been incredibly restrictive job-wise, but we've managed up until now.

However, my current job is an hour and a half away by public transport, or an hour cycling. If you drive, it's 15 minutes. Nature of the job means antisocial hours, like back to back shifts and shifts less than 11 hours apart. When you finish at 9pm, and you have to be back in at 6am, you simply can't afford to be wasting that amount of time travelling.

Unfortunately, it's also the most fulfilling job I've ever had, so I'm learning to drive.

@JacquesHarlow whilst I agree with some of what you are saying, we just don’t have the infrastructure outside of big cities to be able to facilitate this. Victorian women were not driving to their jobs, whilst dropping their children at nursery and school on the way. I have a small car, live on a Victorian street and do understand the fustration you have. My main gripe is that the council allow small 2/3 bedroom homes to be converted into HMOs which then can house up to 6/8 adults, who then all have a car and take up even more of the road. Even worse is that those with minute front gardens that could fit a Corsa for example are not allowed to turn these fronts into drives because they aren’t ’big enough’ should someone want to park a large car on there. As someone who lived in London and now lives outside of it, there is a stark difference in the reliability and frequency of transport.

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

@JacquesHarlow
There is so much wrong in just this paragraph, and your original post.

The old narrow streets were built in a time when the husband/father went to work and the wife/mother stayed at home. As a family, they were unlikely to be able to afford a car. These days both adults generally work in order to be able to support their family. In order to get to work, they both need transport - assuming they work for different companies. Public transport is rarely a viable option outside of our cities, so they need cars.

The kids back then usually moved out and started their own families. Again, probably unable to afford a car. The kids of today's era can't afford to move out at a young age, but they probably work, so they will also need transport.

The councils / governments are contributing to the problem by building on any plot of land they can get their grubby paws on, but not providing adequate parking for all those new houses/flats.

I live on an estate; it's grown rapidly in the 30 years I've lived here, and yes parking is a nightmare. We're lucky that our driveway can take 2 vehicles as parking outside our house is rarely available. Yes I know I don't own the road, but up until 5-10 years ago it was never a problem.

I do drive a 4x4. It's not new or a status symbol (it's 20 years old and all I could afford). I can park it, I can reverse park it, no problem at all. The reason why I have it is a long term back condition meaning I can't get in or out of a 'regular' car. Without it, I'd be stuck at home - staring at some random car parked outside my house, slowly losing my mind.

Taxing the limited parking isn't the solution. Providing enough parking for all the new builds is.

I would imagine most of the time it’s just because they like them, isn’t it?
like with most things.

I’d love a Mercedes G Wagon. I don’t need one, but if funds stretched I’d get one.

1.5 kg in weight? I hope this is a typo

People are more time poor than ever now and this means they are more dependent on the most convenient / time saving option to them. Unless you live in a major city with excellent public transport, for the majority of people, that means owning a car.

I think the bigger issue is the cost and availability of public transport and the cost of housing increasing to the point that you often have to live further away from work to afford it.

For what my 4 bed detached house in a nice area is worth, to live near my work I'd get an end of terrace 3 bed ex-council house in a really grotty neighbourhood.

It's a 25 minute drive from work to my house and fuel costs me around £1,300 per year. I own my own car but I pay £500 for insurance and set aside around £750 a year to pay for repairs and servicing. Around £212 per month.

By public transport, the same journey would take me 95 minutes (each way) and consists of a bus, two trains and another bus and would cost me £3 each trip for the first bus, £3,600 for an annual train ticket and £1.50 each trip for the second bus.

Total cost per year = £4,680 or £390 per month.

The time saving of having a car is priceless too. 50 mins per day commuting rather than 3 hours!

I do agree with OP though that there's so many new cars nowadays due to the increase in PCPs. How some people are affording £600+ per month I don't know!

To be honest, I've never got to grips with how PCPs work, so I tend to either save and buy outright or take an HP on a car that I'll end up owning at the end of the term. My car is 8 years old, I've had it for 7 years old, but it's been paid off and fully mine for 4 years now. In that time I've been setting aside what I was previously paying in HP payments to save up towards the next car.

Public transport near me is utter shite. I can’t see how me taking 3hours to travel 16 miles can be any better for the environment than me taking 35 mins in my car. Sort public transport and I’ll use it but buses stop going around my area at 7pm and don’t start again until 7am at a whopping frequency of one an hour

Sometimes, but often it’s because both parents work and have to get the child to school as quickly as possible before dashing off to work. I accept that there are some people who do drive ridiculously short distances (I know someone who is fully able-bodied who lives on the same road as the school and drives the one minute from her house to the gates). However, I reckon most of us are trying to fit a school run around inflexible work start times, or our kids have been allocated a school miles from home.

That’s me!

We have a Defender. I like being above the traffic and having a better field of vision in London. Also, the way some absolute nutjobs drive means I wanted a tank of a car so that a cyclist/Uber moped/other car etc hitting us wouldn’t mean we would get hurt.

We only use it at the weekends and doing airport runs etc so like the big boot and being able to chuck stuff in.

If this means a flaming, ok. I like our car. Worked hard for it. I’m fine with it.

There is probably a middle ground OP. There is probably also lots that most of us agree on:

• some people use their cars for journeys where there are viable alternatives but many others outside of cites / large towns don’t have an alternative
• some people own multiple cars but don’t need to
• some people have big cars and need them (larger families for example) and others not
• More adult children are living at home than previously, causing pressures on parking
• most of us would support better cycling infrastructure and public transport but, some rural areas simply could not ever generate demand for public transport (my immediate area included)

There are so many variables on need and personal circumstances.

I could support a financial penalty for adults with more than one registered vehicle. Larger and more expensive vehicles already attract a higher road tax cost, as they should.

I’m not sure why the OP is accused of being a Reformer: they’d be more likely to talk of the ‘war on drivers’. I don’t think she’s talking about people who live rurally either, I feel it’s kind of accepted if you live in the countryside you kind of need to use private transport. She was sexist though, I didn’t care for that.

There was a discussion here a while back about the idea of “20 minute cities”, the idea that urban areas should be designed to ensure everyone had access to basic amenities within walking distance of their home. Reform types went mental, calling it communism. The sheer rage about checks notes having a local shop.

Yes it is a problem. Many and multiple causes. The death of the high street in favour of out of town retail parks. Housing crisis. Planning laws. Expensive and unreliable public transport. Cunts. I mean where to start fixing it.