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?