What would your life change if you had to get rid of your car/could no longer drive

[Netcurtainnelly]

Do you ever worry about this?
How would it change your life tomorrow?
Which things would not be possible anymore?

Wow! Thats is rural!

Not impossible but certainly less convenient. We live on a main bus route but only three an hour each way maximum, fewer at weekends/evenings and shorter routes at either end of the day, Hospital would take 10-15 minutes by car, 20-25 by bus direct, or longer if need to change at nearest town.

I would be pretty much housebound /dependent on lifts. No public transport, nearest town is 20km. I could cycle/walk 5km to the nearest village, there's one or 2 buses a day from there.

We live rurally, we both drive and there is one bus through the village at about 10.30am. If we could no longer drive it would mean a house move.

We don't use the car that much, but it would be annoying for when we do.

1. DC have 2 clubs that would be a pain to walk/bus to, and we probably couldn't fit them in if public transport was required.
2. We visit family once a month or so. The journey would be a pain on public transport with luggage and would also require a taxi/lift from station.

However we commute by train and have reasonable public transport, so we could cope.

I wouldn't be able to get to work. It would be multiple buses and treble the time.
Which also means my working day would be shorter as I can't leave for work earlier or collect my DC later.

It would also be a pain collecting youngest to then walk them to a bus stop to get home.
Actually I'd probably end up turning my 9 yo into a "latch key kid".

Then I'd need to give up extracurricular stuff, music, probably scouts, might be able to keep some stuff going depending on times but everything would take longer

Visiting family would be a pain.
It probably means moving house

I'd be stuck - live rurally, no buses, but we have a post office, pub and a 3 day a week opening chippy in the village to keep me going!!!

This is very area-dependent, isn't it? I love in London, partly due to the public transport and I didn't want to rely on a car, so my life wouldn't change.

Some family members, however, live very rurally - it would have a hugely negative impact on them

This happened to me last year, after 50 years of driving and having my own car. I had cataract surgery, there were problems and I failed my DVLA eye test. I’ve appealed and it’s being considered, but I’ve been grounded for all this time and I’m starting to think I’m probably not going to get my licence back. It’s made a massive difference to my life. Huge.

I’ve lost my independence and I struggle with that a lot. I do live on a bus route, but the destinations are limited and al, the things I took for granted are now difficult to impossible. Going to Sainsbury’s or Tesco is out (I get home delivery, but miss being able to choose my own stuff), trips to The Range or any other shops….out. Garden centres, visiting friends, taking my dog to the interesting places we used to walk…nope. Going on holiday is logistically a nightmare as I can’t get her to the kennels, so have to find a housesitter. I have a dog walker twice a week so she can get out and enjoy different places, but I don’t have that myself. The money I save by not running a car is swallowed up by taxi fares (I have two or three hospital visits a month, each of which is a £50 return fare). These are just the things off the top of my head - it restricts my life in so many ways every bloody day.

As I said, I’m really struggling with this loss of independence. I know other people have it a lot worse, but I feel my quality of life has gone down so much in the last year and it’s taking a bit of getting used to.

We had to get rid of our car, l never drove, DP had an accident and cant drive. To be honest its ok. We live in a small town. Get taxis if we need. Honestly its actually cheaper than car bills and petrol.
ETA we were getting trains on longer journeys anyway as DP was finding driving long distances hard

We don't have a car so not much day to day. We walk, cycle, use public transport.

We do rent a car for the odd holiday/weekend trip, just would do something different

Honestly my car is rarely used for myself now you come to ask this question. I wfh and husband has a car also so he drops me off on nights out or to appointments if needed anyway. Im normally ferrying grandchild or son. 2 of my 3 kids drive so they could help me if I needed it or I could use their cars. So not a massive deal for me at this point. Couldn't have bared the thought 15 years ago with 3 kids under 13!

I live rurally with minimal public transport. I work in a city with no transport links so my job would go and all my weekend and evening activities would stop and driving my DC and DGC around would stop. My life would be severely impacted without a car.

Public transport in rural areas is appalling and to have any sort of social life or to commute into the city has to be a lot, lot better

I’d lose my job because there’s no public transport when I’m on a 3-4am start. Getting home from a late shift would also be impossible, the joys of living in an area with third world public transport.

I get your comment about people having it a lot worse, but you entitled to feel pissed off at the loss of independence. Many people plan their lives around never having driven and never having run a car but they generally live in places which suit that. If I lived in London I could get to a hospital pretty easily, but where I am the nearest hospital is a 1.5 hour bus ride away and there is one bus a day! I can get to plenty of places easily, but others are just unreachable.

I stopped driving 15 years ago but I still sometimes hate the loss of independence.

I only learnt to drive about 18 months ago (I’m 40) I’d lived in various large cities all of my adult life and never felt the need to learn… until I moved to a small town up north and started a family.

I got by ok because I had to. I walked everywhere, used buses and trains but anyone with younger kids will know, it made things tricky and restricts what you can do at times. Having to plan everything down to the dot, everything taking twice as long, standing around in the cold waiting for the bus/train ,getting rained on, not enough hands to carry everything, kids wanting to run about and be kids etc. I didn’t really go very far during the week and left the longer journeys for the weekend when dh was off. It worked ok for us tbh, but I didn’t want to rely on dh all the time and I needed that independence. DCs are still little but I know they’ll be a day when they’ll be doing after school clubs/seeing friends etc and will need ferrying around, plus I want to be able to help my parents out more as they age.

Driving has made everything much easier and quicker. I do feel like I have more time now, a good example of this, is every week I used to get the bus to a playgroup with dc, even though it was only 2.5 miles away, door to door, it took about 45 minutes to get there on the bus. Driving, it takes 10 mins and I can go food shopping afterwards!

We still walk to school most days though ( 20 min walk) it’s good for me and good for dcs to walk and get fresh air, so not giving that up!

I would definitely rethink my job as a nurse. Leaving the house at 6:30am, 12 hour shift then getting home after 9:30pm would be too much for me now if I had to get the bus.
Could only walk dog round the streets, not the woods or beach which we love.

I had to surrender my license following a diagnosis of a progressive untreatable disease which causes sight loss. While I fully understand why I had to stop driving, it was a very difficult thing to accept and life since then has been far less independent or spontaneous.

It would be changed on a devastating level, in that my whole way of life would change.

I wouldn't be able to do my job. Although I would likely get support from access to work (assuming I can't drive due to illness/disability).

I also travel a lot and own a camper van, and spend about 50-60 nights a year away in it. It's my camper, and I live alone, so no one else could drive it for me.

My child/grandchild don't live within walking distance, so contact would be extremely limited. My partner doesn't live in walking distance, but he drives so I would still see him.

Actually we were looking at this for my FIL, and realised that the cost of insurance, petrol, tax and car maintenance for a year is quite high, so this would pay for a LOT of taxis and buses.

Taxis would be necessary as he lives in a semi-rural location.

It's the FREEDOM that comes with a car though.

Yes it would change a lot. We live so remote - there is no bus stop in walking distance from our house, no pavement (you walk out from the drive straight on to the road), you could potentially walk to town but it Will take an hour (I know as we did that once 😆), I would be basically trapped or had to rely on lifts. We do have taxis but to order one is a nightmare…

I love the bus routes where I live and some walking. Living in a quiet town but close to Lidl means all I need to do, is just walk down the road for 10 min with a big old ladies shopping trolley or carry it back

We are not totally reliant on our car. We moved from Dorset (hardly any public transport although high population) to Somerset, which has a much smaller population and lots of buses (no trains).

I don't like driving but have pretty much always had to. I'm hoping when DC is no longer dependent or when retired at least, I can give up the car.

There are buses, two that go to a cities (both take a long time), there is a train station about 20 minutes walk away but you'd have to change a couple of times to get anywhere worth going. I like to go to large shopping center, no public transport goes there, so I'd miss that, unless I got an Uber.

Supermarkets, doctors (not dentists), hair salons within walking distance. Assuming I was healthy enough to walk.

I think I would manage okay. Mil passed her test years ago but has never driven, she manages okay mostly via buses, different area though.

Thinking more into this I'd have to go to one of the private dentists (no NHS ones where I live). I'm lucky to have an NHS one currently but I guess not running a car would more than pay for private dental charges!

Would be difficult to get to hospitals too. I could get to one of them by taking 2 trains with a bit of walking at both ends.