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?

Three words

Lack of public transport

(actually that was 4 words)

Dont come and talk to me about London, Im a Londoner but we moved out and I had to drive to do so. We go on holiday all around the UK, different places all the time. We look at bus stops and laugh. Oh you can go to that tesco (only tesco) on a Wednesday afternoon and come back on the Friday. Thats handy.

Other places, last bus is around 6pm or so. Great

No stations within walking distance. Roads without pavements to walk along

So have you shared your car between 5 adults in a household who all have different places to be? Usually with no public transport going there? How did that go?

I've lived in towns, villages and a city, and none had great transport links as I was on the very outer edge of that city, though that was clearly the best one. Most towns and villages in the UK have shockingly bad public transport options these days.

I don't drive (due to anxiety and just being rubbish at it!) but I wish I could. I'm a SAHM to two preschool age children and getting to places outside of the town centre takes two buses and 45-60 minutes, if not longer. And many lovely places are simply inaccessable without a car. It takes so much more planning (my local bus is once an hour), the kids are often tired on the journey back, and the cost adds up. I get why most people wouldn't choose that!

I learned to drive in the early nineties in my northern town. I drove for a couple of years before moving to London. Since 1995 I have not driven. Sadly, my sister died last autumn and left me her house and car. I travel to South Yorkshire regularly to check on her property. It takes me 5 hours door to door. This includes a tube journey from my zone 4 flat to London St Pancras. Over 2 hours on the train to Sheffield, then a local train to my birthplace (a former mining town in South Yorkshire). The journey costs me over £80 and this is with booking in advance and using off-peak services. That is the cheapest option.

My sister's house is in a rural location. Buses run every two hours on a Sunday. The nearest large supermarket is 5 miles away on footpaths. The car is now in the garage awaiting an MOT. I will be driving it back to London.

I am 54 now. Not doing the bollocks of long-distance train journeys. When the East Coast line is down the service on East Midlands Trains is terrible. No advance booking and I have had to stand between London and Sheffield recently.

I have no kids. I took my first long-distance flight to the Caribbean recently (on my own). I give zero fucks about air pollution. I have a second job that is night shift working. I can get to work in six minutes in a car. The 40 minute walk around canals, tube lines etc at 11pm is not attractive.

I could have written this myself. I had this very conversation with a family member yesterday.

My sister's house is in a rural village outside Barnsley. I returned her library books when she died. Five hours return trip on public transport due to timings! This included using South Pennines community transport. The car is in for an MOT and I will be driving. Small car - not ULEZ charge.

I have spent the last 30 years being ripped off by sub-standard rail services! Nah, not happening mate. Comfort over air pollution!

I last got on a bus a few weeks back with my OH to pop to our neighbouring area, dangerous dog at the back, man shouting at dangerous dog (looked like a massive staffy bully type thing), playing loud music on his phone.

Yeah, a nice experience, makes me want to use the buses more.

Plenty of public transport if you're in London. There's cities in the north that can't even get funding for electric trains.

Every train i have got recently I've had to claim Delay Repay for delays and cancellations. And they're more than double the price of fuel, especially if you've got passengers.

Better public transport would reduce the number of people buying cars if they didn't feel they needed them.

My son had to move to a new city for his first proper job after leaving Uni. Although he had passed his driving test, he didn't have his own car and used ours during this school and Uni holidays. Never planned to buy a car in the new city as it claimed to have good public transport. The flat he rented was right on a bus route, so he thought "happy days" - it was partly the reason why he chose that flat!

In reality, it was a sodding nightmare. Despite being in a main suburb with it's own "High St" and huge areas of housing, it was a single bus route, that only ran every 45 minutes. The bus he caught to get to work in the morning simply didn't turn up once or twice every week, making him late as the one afterwards, being 45 minutes later got stuck in rush hour traffic so actually arrived in the city centre an hour later! Coming home was just as bad with buses cancelled for no reason (other than breakdowns and staff shortages!) Then they'd just randomly "terminate" on route sometimes and sometimes randomly stop for the driver to get out and disappear with no information given to the passengers as to whether it was a 5 minute loo stop or a 20 minute break, leaving the passengers unsure whether to get out and walk or stay and hope for the best.

Not to mention he couldn't work late or stay in town for drinks or a meal with friends as the return buses didn't run till late evening.

As for going shopping to big supermarkets and retail parks - it took hours! It was a "wagon wheel" bus route system within an outer circular ring road. His only bus route went into town and out again, his house was say 10am on the clock face and the destination was 2pm on the clock face. However the shopping areas were 6pm and 12noon meaning he had to go into town, get off at one bus stop, walk to another bus stop to get a bus heading out of town back to the by pass - a journey from 10am to 12 noon on the clockface that would take 10 minutes by car took over 2 hours each way!

After a month or two of giving it a good try, he gave up and bought a car!

As other PP have said, public transport is poor outside of London, and this means that getting anywhere reliably and on time results in more cars on the road.
Also we've got a much higher population than 25 years ago, so more transport needs.
The massive size of many vehicles now is not helpful either. Our roads and car parks are simply not built for so many of these larger vehicles. I'm surprised that this government haven't capitalised on this yet with higher taxation but I'm sure they will.

When there's a "critical mass" of electric cars, the govt at the time will have to change the way they're taxed as there'll be a huge black hole from the loss of tax on fuel duty, road tax, VAT on fuel, benefits in kind on employer provided cars, etc etc.

I suspect we'll see a mix of much higher road tax AND "per mile" pricing.

There'll have to be big changes as the country simply can't give up the massive tax revenues generated from petrol/diesel cars.

I agree, cars have become too wide. I queried this with a ford salesman who told me that's what the public wants. No, it's what you want to sell me. Our island is small with narrow lanes, we need car sizes to match. If I were OP and faced with a driver who refused to reverse a few feet, then I would get out, approach them and offer to guide them into the space. If you can't manoeuvre your vehicle, then it's time to exchange it for something you can!

By historical standards they are massive. Anything approaching 2 tonnes and over would capture Range Rover Evoque and upwards as an example. Sliding scale so it would be proportionate. Nissan Quashquai is over 1.5 tonnes and getting heavier as the newer models come out.

Why

There are small cars made so when you talk to the salesmen you should ask to see the small cars

but … lots of the smaller ones are being discontinued as people don’t buy them in high enough volumes to make it worth thier while

on the bright side this means my tiny car has a surprising high second hand value

100% agree. I am distressed on a daily basis by the way people drive and park and sit in their cars with their engines running outside schools. I bite my tongue because any time I've been brave enough to politely ask someone to turn off their engine or move their car because its fully blocking a pavement I've had a load of abuse shouted at me. I think it's so sad that my kids can't even walk to the bottom of my street because I'm terrified someone is going to mount the curb to park. Find it very depressing.

There really aren't. Someone upthread mentioned the Citroen Ami. It's a joke of a car. Google it!

We actively wanted a small car to replace out 17 year old Citroen C3. We wanted one the same width as it had to fit down a narrow driveway at OH's workplace where other people squeeze past with trolleys/wheelie bins etc so need plenty of space to stop them scratching it! We naively thought a Citroen C1 or C2 would do - no longer made! The C3 is now a lot wider. We also looked at Toyota Aygo and Hyundai i10 which were the narrowest 4 door cars available. Looked at the Peugeot and Renault dealerships - no narrow 4 door cars. Looked at Ford and Vauxhall - no narrow 4 door cars. Same with VW and Skoda - all wide cars. Finally settled on another C3 but it's a lot wider than the old C3 and he really has to tuck it in to one side of the driveway to stop it being scratched.

We go to a few historic vehicle rallies - the older cars are so much narrower - it's so obvious.

As for asking the car salesmen, we did. A few of them said how funny it was that so many people ask for smaller cars! But they had nothing remotely suitable.

There really aren't. Someone upthread mentioned the Citroen Ami. It's a joke of a car. Google it!

Officially it's a quad bike, not a car.

Hmmm interesting point. I do get some of your points as in, there’s way too many cars in lots of places causing many problems (traffic, fumes etc) but as most of the commenters have said, a car is often essential to every day life now.

I wfh and live in a middle size village so walk everywhere (nursery drop off, local shop, cafe) and don’t particularly enjoy driving. But if I want to visit family, the cost of travel is absolutely ridiculous compared to petrol.

My partner grew up in a family that don’t drive (gparents, mum and sister) but they do and there’s lots of things that are really hard for them, even though they live in a very built up area. One bus an hour to the town, Christmas is impossible for them to go anywhere because the taxi fare is massive and no public transport. Big food shops, they have to get a taxi home or always online order. When my DD was born 2 years ago, I asked my partner how his mum and dad got home from hospital without a car - do you put your newborn in a taxi??? My whole point of this ramble is that yes, of course there are too many cars but there’s sooo many cases where having a car is essential.

We’re currently selling our second car as we can make do with one but there’ll be situations where my dp will be at work (travel is 3x the petrol) and I won’t be able to do everything I want on my days off with my daughter.

im sure you’ve already responded to comments to others but what would be the other option? Lots of tax on families with more than 1 car?

The British seem to be obsessed with car labels. I’m generalising as I don’t have the data but when I’m in Europe - France, Spain, Scandinavia etc. They drive much smaller cars that I assume have been bought outright (as older). There is also less interest in house renovations and interiors.

Has car ownership gone up that much. At 18 I bought a car, as did my brother.
My 18 y o DS doesn't have plans to, and only 1 of 4 adult cousins do.
City residential streets were packed 20 years ago too.
I don't see it.

Somebody must buy the cars new, otherwise there wouldn't be any older ones for people to buy outright.

I agree. I think it's the increasing population that is causing the problem. Back in the early 80s, our household had 4 cars (4 adults). Most of my friends had their own cars which was a rite of passage for us - most of us learned to drive as soon as we were 17, initially drove parent cars and then bought our own after a couple of years once we got jobs.

I agree. As we saw during Covid when the supply of new cars dried up, there was a shortage of used cars which pushed up prices.

You’ve laid out a load of problems (which I’m mostly in agreement with btw) without offering up any solutions, before then going on to criticise others for not solving them for you. WWYD?

Similarly for everyone else complaining about a lack of decent public transport, the problem of traffic congestion is worse in the big cities which do have good public transport, nobody is complaining about people in the countryside going to the nearest supermarket.