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?

There are an awful lot more cars on the road now compared to 27 years ago when I started driving, and yes it seems like since Covid a lot of the nation collectively forgot how to drive/drive in a considerate manner.

But by your theory I would not be allowed to own a car because I live in a terraced house and don’t have my own parking space. And I have a 4x4, because I tow a caravan with my car and also because the council gave up getting roads in the winter years ago, so it’s deadly when it’s icy. I live in a small rural town and public transport is next to non existent. So a car is a necessity. A lot of the multiple car households will be because DC can’t afford to move out until a lot later than in times gone by, and they still need a car to be able to get to their jobs etc.

The journey is approx 6 miles door to door, it would take 15 min in the car. We live in a small commuter town, with a station, so not in the middle of nowhere, or particularly rural. The pub is in a village outside the commuter town.

By public transport (using 2 buses) it would take approx 1 hr 30, meaning walk 10-15 minutes to a bus stop, get a bus to another town, then wait and get a connecting bus to said village. This was not practical but luckily she has found another job that she can get to easily by train.

I've no idea why you said I suggested the bus travelled at 4 mph.
Some journeys are quicker and more convenient on public transport (we chose the town because we can get to work far more easily and quickly by train, and would rarely consider driving into London) But getting anywhere by bus from here is not especially efficient, and there was not a direct route, in this scenario.

Is it only where I live that there are lots of people who travel on public transport with extremely poor personal hygiene? Really stinky greasy hair on the person sitting in front of you. BO. People who bring dangerous dogs on the bus. Alcoholics. People who must chain smoke fags day in day out. No one can pretend getting a bus is pleasant or restful. It’s why I’d rather cycle.

I definitely agree cars have got too big. We aren’t a big country for big cars like usa. We’re a small island with narrow roads and small parking spaces !

I don't live anywhere near that kind of parking chaos, don't drive a big chunky car, don't have PCP, park on my own drive, don't block pavements and yet I still feel like I've just been told off.

It’s also not just about getting to work, it’s also about leisure time as well, why should I be stuck at home because there are no buses to get me to my local leisure centre for my evening netball match, let alone getting home again in the dark, why should I be stuck at home on a Sunday when I fancy a drive out for a cream tea in a nice village? Cars are not just about need they are about pleasure and aiding lifestyles as well.

If you feel so strongly OP why don’t you lead by example and give up your car?

I’ll just get on the invisible bus shall I?

People don’t use it because it isn’t frequent enough so they can’t get where they need to be.
The network also isn’t extensive enough.

I don’t want to have to get to an appointment 1 hour 45 before I need to, which is what I would have had to do the other day (small town near three major towns).

I was sitting in the inevitable traffic queue at Stonehenge the other day, next to a massive SUV which was almost the same size and height as the minibus in front of it. I was actually quite shocked. It's obvious why the potholes in our roads are so bad if everybody's basically driving lorries....

My mother is disabled, @Toastandbutterand . Has been for twenty five years.

What has disability got to do with anything here?

A disabled person living on the terraced street I lived on, and owning a car, doesn’t bother me.

a disabled person owning 5 cars including large SUVs, and parking them all along a terraced street, would bother me.

My issue is how we allow one household to own any number of cars despite the Victorian infrastructure on the kerbside. There isn’t room for 2 tonne SUVs on most of our streets. There isn’t the capacity for one family to take up 25% of the parking in one road.

why do we allow this?

and why do we allow specious arguments like yours, where you pull the disability card on me to try and discredit my perfectly credible argument?

I think there should be increases in car tax the more cars you have registered to a single address, to discourage multi-car households.

Did you answer my question on those who drive large vehicles under the mobility scheme?

Sorry, meant motorbility.

It's not your argument I was addressing, sorry!

It's the people that NEED cars, and have so many arguments for why they need them. The same people that say disabled people should just be more resilient and try harder.

I think a one car per household rule is a pretty good idea tbh. It would solve a lot of problems. More space on the roads, encouraging public transport use and car sharing. Less pollution. More exercise from walking short journeys. Lots of other good outcomes I'm sure.

The consultant for my disability is based at a hospital 32 miles away from my house.

I don't drive, due to my disability. Sure, it takes 2 hrs each way on public transport. I manage though. I manage to travel around for work on public transport. For most journeys it's possible.

The only time I've ever needed a car was taking my kids home from hospital after they were born, and I got a taxi for that.

It's obvious why the potholes in our roads are so bad if everybody's basically driving lorries.... As well as those heavy electric cars we are being "nudged" into using.

I will not buy the anti-car arguments until politicians give up their cars, and until public transport becomes much cheaper and more convenient. If I have to travel somewhere, often the decision is along the lines of: train £60 and takes longer, car less than £25. Tough decision, innit?

I would, however, support car-sharing being made more convenient. Such schemes exist in large cities, but not in small towns. I live in a small town just outside a large city, and this makes public transport much more expensive and inconvenient. If I moved to just inside the city, I would be paying about ten times as much for where I live. Once you have bought a car, and paid the many costs such as insurance, tax and repairs, public transport can then feel like an expensive (and slow) luxury. So the anti-car voices need to sort this out, instead of trying to price motorists off the road.

Public transport in my area makes having a car a necessity for me. I start work at 7am and the first bus I could catch (about 10 minutes walk from my house) is at 6.37 and takes 58 minutes to get to the town i work in, plus another 10 minutes on top of that to walk from the bus station to work! There are no trains, and a taxi would be about £30 minimum. The journey by car at that time in the morning, on empty roads takes 20 minutes door to door and actually works out cheaper than the bus fare!

why does it have to be all or nothing? Why can't it be that trips under 3 miles are done by other means - which would take 50% of traffic of the road - as 50% of trips completed are under 3 miles

but keep a car for longer journeys

I find public transport more stressful. I can't bear being crammed in anywhere and get panicky with crowds of people. I would never, ever work anywhere that involved using the tube as I find that worst of all.

Surely it depends on the journey. As I said upthread my journey to work was 15-20 minutes by car, over an hour by public transport. There were two ways I could have walked or cycled it, one was along an unlit towpath and one on an unlit winding road with no paths. Walking or cycling either route would have taken much longer than driving and didn't feel safe so why would I? (This journey was slightly longer than 3 miles but the principle is the same)

We have 3 between 2 and the reason we have 3 between 2 is that the computer on our nice newish (we never buy brand new) eco friendly car failed and it's now an expensive heap of metal that we're still paying for.
Its replacement is an old diesel that has no computer stuff to fail.

Why do we allow this??

..because life in almost all of the UK without a car is miserable, employment, shopping, leisure... all pretty much impossible without a car.

Buses take forever, as they have to make many stops and how would most people do the shopping carrying all those bags around.... trains far too expensive and who wants to pay the taxes to give European levels of fares...

People seem to hate anyone who cycles on the road, so we have ruled out that option all by ourselves......

Now there is an argument on controlling the size of cars but we have decided to go down the EV route and they, due to their batteries/range tend to be bigger & heavier, smaller EVs have a poor range.

Then there is migration, those 1m people per year, now 500k, who have been coming here to work study, bringing in dependents too, also need to get around... but we voted for this....

surely a 15-20 minute journey by car would be 7 miles or more - as speed limits are 20/30mph in most areas of suburbs

not just over 3 miles?

It’s a vicious circle. When the time comes to change my saloon car, it will probably be replaced by a big wheeled 4x4 because of the terrible state of the roads in my locality. Bad enough to break a wheel on my car, not just a tyre.

I'm the same, living rurally. The roads are atrocious with their potholes. I will drive a big fuck off car if it stops me getting forced into a hedge, hard gravel etc by bigger vehicles.