Off the back of office parking spaces question, and in an attempt to not derail it too much, I ask you all simply how reliant are you on your car? And whatever the answer, why?

For me, the answer is “not very”. Wife has a car and drives to work, I don’t have a car and cycle or train to work. Occasionally I’ll borrow her car but not too often. I also occasionally hire a car for work usage. Weekends I use my cargo bike a lot. This is all a bit of an accident as I was a big car user, the car died and I was forced onto the train, the train that leaves from the mainline station 10 minutes from the house that we didn’t even acknowledge when we moved in. Some journey’s are longer by car/train, others shorter, but overall I’ve yet to find a good reason to replace the broken car.

wife commutes in it every day, I drive it once or twice a month (usually longer trips to see the parents etc). Do the grocery shopping on foot.

I could live without it, but I’d miss the convenience of parking right outside my parents house. And saving myself £50 a time while I did so…

Very. Nearest shop is 5 miles away, my work is 30 miles away, my clients are scattered all over the country. My wife owns a consultancy business so all over the country.
Nearest train station is 15miles away, there are 2 buses a week out of the village.
To take the kids swimming, to a friends house, to see any family at all (whom almost all live in the country, but not nearby) also needs a car
So without a car? My life stops working

wholly, 20k a yr in mine, and wife does 7k a yr in hers. Work not commutable by bike, both work in different places, kids at school (different ones), clubs, rides, holidays, family stuff

No car = no work = no money = no eat.

I have lived without a car and it was fine. However I wouldn’t want to go back to that. Getting to the coast to surf would be a proper mission on public transport.

Its a tool we use to carry stuff now and then.
Shopping, general running about, social stuff is all done by bicycle, we have a trailer for cargo and use the sort of bicycles that require zero cycling clothing to ride.
It gets used one a week on average, we rarely go on holiday in it, it almost never goes to work (Motorbikes for that, saves me 1-2 hours a day)
I did once have no car for 2-3 years and I didn’t mis it at all. We’re hoping to move house soon and a BIG part of the plan will be to walk or cycle to work.

Pretty reliant I’d say. We live out in the country, it’s over two miles down to the nearest shops, no public transport until we get to the same area as the shops. If forced to then we could do without it but even shopping for essentials would be very time consuming as even on an unladen bike it takes nearly 15mins to get back up the hill.

If I lived in a town/city then I think it would be different.

Very.

My wife uses her car for work and without drivers like her many of the local inform and elderly wouldn’t be able to live at home.

I commute 30 miles to work and there is no chance of public transport at “normal” times, let alone the crazy hours I sometimes do. I’ve just bought a motorbike though as parking in the city round where I work is horrendous.

There are few large shops in the village, so it’s also a 30 mile journey for large items and certain types of shopping. I can reduce that my using mail order but that’s only making someone else do the driving 😆

Truth is, the countryside would be empty if rural folk didn’t have access to cars. Then the town-dwellers wouldn’t have anyone to clean their holiday homes for them or serve them tea and cake for the reward of a minimum wage that doesn’t let them buy a house locally as prices have been so inflated by folk buying up all the property and letting it out for tourists.

(and breathe)

Use my van maybe three times a week, two rides and one shopping trip.

I work from home though.

For work and commuting not so much but for going riding I am reliant on it.

A more pertinent question might be

“How reliant are you on people who are reliant on their cars?”

As much as some might view car ownership and usage as a lifestyle choice, they quite often underestimate that their choice is only possible because it is facilitated by other people in society making different choices.

Very. I live in a village with no bus or train stops within 6 miles of it. I have a local shop and post office within a mile, but the nearest town is 7 miles.

Work is 18 miles away, I cycle from home 2 days per week, drive one day and do the 7miles to the nearest town, park and then cycle the remaining 11 each way, collecting shopping on the way home.

I also have 2 kids who need to get to school/can’t be left alone. Without the car, what would I do?

Not very. Missus and I usually walk to work, we walk our son to school.

It’s usually used at the weekends for the weekly shop and trips out and about, or for long distance journeys visiting rellies etc.

Only other time is for band rehearsals and gigs etc in the week.

We probably do less than 5000 miles a year, split across two cars (long story, one was a gift following a short-lived long commute).

Not very but its nice to have.

I work from home but maybe once a month meet colleagues in an office 200 miles away.

I could use the train for that and we have another car for general running around .

My car is paid for, the tax is zero and insurance £100 a year so I’m happy enough to have it sat around for the occasional use.

Very. Nearest supermarket is 9 miles, work is 18 miles.

Once every week I drive to Luton to visit my mum in care home.

I live in a village, getting a bus to work would be 2-3 hours

Slight OT. Some years (maybe 30 years come to think of it) ago I read a report about the general cost of car usage if you lived and worked in the same urban area. The report claimed that it was cheaper to use public transport/bike between home and work during the week and then hire a car to head off wherever for the weekend.

No idea if the same holds true today.

on weekdays not much – i cycle to work (but can take public transport). wife doesn’t work so doesn’t need it. kids’ school is a walk. only 2 week day clubs need to be driven to, everything else is walkable. food shopping done by bike generally

weekends vary – depends on if we’re going out as a family or doing things that needs it. public transport is good, but car is practical for day to day stuff with the kids. I use the bike for anything local (like shopping/errands) as it’s quicker and easier. We used the car on sunday to get to a friend’s party, not possible to get there any other way easily.

I have a motorbike so can use that, but it’s not much use as for family or dog transportation. It’s for fun really, and it’s too nice a bike for me to park up for any period without it being at risk of being nicked

I’m in Wales this weekend so am borrowing a car to get there, rather than potentially strand the family at home

Not very reliant on it. No commute for me or the wife although it does get used for occasional work trips, probably 50/50 with public transport. We do most of our food shopping on foot but the occasional ‘big shop’ in the car, maybe once or twice a month. More reliant for hobbies, weekends away, etc. It was a very definite lifestyle choice for us and we’ve made some sacrifices for it but that’s our choice. I do get a bit annoyed (very mildly) with people who say they ‘have to’ drive when they mean ‘choose to’

Fairly – we run two cars because we have to, I’d love not to.

My Wife, district Nurse, covers a fairly small area but has to carry a huge amount of kit these days so it’s the only viable way to do her job.

Because she starts pretty early I do the school run in the morning – that’s an 11 year old and a 3 year old – two separate places a few miles apart and about 10 miles in total, there is public transport but it’s not direct and would take 2 hours to do what we do in 30 mins now. I also need my car for work, it’s a company car so I can’t decide not to – I carry lots of very expensive kit from time to time over a fairly large area so again public transport isn’t an option.

Neither of our cars cost us much because they’ve 90% used for work, one or both sits idle at the weekends.

Quite.

Cycle to work, drop kids off to school on her bike, nursery on a Hamax seat.

We’re still a 2 car household though cos the Mrs doesn’t like me putting muddy mountain bikes in her car 😳

Infact, the bike carrying car actually doesn’t get driven without a bike on the roof twice a week. I could ride to the local trails but that’s an extra hour on the ride over driving and means i’d miss the put kids to bed and still have time for a night ride window.

Whitestone, probably does make sense in cash terms, but the additional faff is reason not to (for us anyway)

There are e cars you can pick up hourly round the corner, but it’s still more faff than just getting in the car that’s on the drive

(plus the family holidays would be a palava)

It’s not got any petrol in it and I just spent the money that would put petrol in it on bike parts to finish my Turner Sultan.

Wife has one she uses for work (company car). I cycle to work, walk to shops etc. Living in a town centre helps obviously…

Very. Rural location in a tiny village with no shop or bus service, nearest village ship is 5km away. Work is 25km away and I could commute the odd day by bike but work, health and life is complicated enough as it is.

Often don’t use the car over the weekend, though.

Very and it sneaked up on me.

When living in Edinburgh borrowing was fine.

Moved to Peebles driving/liftsharing/pt wasn’t to bad as other colleagues lived in Peebles. Car wasn’t wholly essential but lack of would have been inconvenient.

Change of job to south queensferry I lost the liftsharing pt still surprisingly viable timewise.

Then the office moved. Driving is slightly shorter, pt became a 2hr slightly for 25miles.

I cycle very occasionally but it’s tough concentrating and the roads a bit rubbish in terms of speed and passing cars.

So by accident I’ve arrived at “I need a car”

Very. I work all over the south east and east Anglia. I live in a tiny village , kids schools are 5 miles away, girlfriend lives 140 miles away.
Currently i clock up nearly 30k miles a year.

Quite, given that I’m a landlord and do most of the maintenance and repairs, there will be lots of times in the year when I’m using it as a builder’s van or equivalent, moving tools and materials.

Also, one of the family is quite ill and needs to get to a hospital 50 miles away every fortnight or so, and isn’t able to access public transport, so I do that drive in our own car too.

I help support my dad who’s a bit ancient and fallaparty, so quite often dash up the 83 miles to him as I’m now his closest since my sister moved south.

Local trips, we live about a mile from the town centre, so we can usually walk or bike.

We do have two cars, when we bought the second one a few years back there wasn’t a car club/ community car scheme round here, if it had been going, we might have stuck with one.

Then there’s the outings and family hols etc, with a dog and a bike, wouldn’t be much fun by public transport.

Technically, wife and I both need our cars for work every day to visit “service users”. She does that daily, I can juggle it to one day a week.

She could catch a bus to her office for a half hour journey, but would struggle to ride that far due to her disability. I can and do ride to work a couple of days a week, but it’s 24 miles a day. Bus for me would 90 minutes.

Kids can walk or cycle to school, Scouts and Guides, maybe music by bus, but a couple of their activities are too far/late to use public transport.

Good facilities in our village including a Tesco Express, otherwise 3 miles to nearest supermarket, which could be biked or taxi for a big shop.

We run two cars but could probably get by with one.

Well strictly we are not reliant on any car at all as in do we *need* them for work etc – no we’re not.

But only one car would be inconvenient and living with no car incredibly so.

I’d therefore rather just stick with the both…

Commute by bike every day and do little runs into the city centre on the bike too so I could technically live car-free.

But I have two elderly and ill parents who live 40 miles away with no direct transport links. I also rely on my car to see friends all over the country and to go biking. So work-wise I don’t need a car at all but for my social life I most definitely do. That explains why I still clock up 15k miles a year despite not using it for commuting.

Biking in different places on a regular basis keeps me sane. My van takes me to those places.

Pretty reliant then!.

Thankfully hardly at all. I ride to work every day, and have devised ways of getting my stuff about when I have to be elsewhere. It doesn’t always work, but mostly it does.

My wife uses our minibus only infrequently, as my little kids walk to their primary school, my older kids walk to their high school, and my even older kids either don’t live at home, or use their bicycle to get to college.

This is all helped because we live in an ideal part of our city, where it is not really necessary to have a car.

Work is in the middle of nowhere where the closest buildings are meth houses and then 3 prisons… Driving is pretty much the only option. I did see someone riding a horse to work last month though..

Supermarkets here do not deliver so I do the shopping on the way home to save extra trips but until one of those work from home schemes I keep getting emailed about comes good I am pretty tied to the car.

For the basics, not very- I can cycle or walk to work, use a hire car at work if need be (a ban would be a problem but not having a car doable), got some good local shops. It’d make my side business pretty hard to do, since every week or so I go and drop a shitload of packages off at the depot. And it’d stop me enjoying my cycling as much, except for when I can scam a lift off someone else. But I could do it.

I need mine to get to work then to get around when at work, infact the car comes with the job. Could live without one if I didn’t work but wouldn’t change job just to do without.

Very. I need it for work, as getting to schools across Scotland and north England is just too challenging at the moment by public transport, particularly with a wheelbarrow of resources.

Way too reliant unfortunately, 75% of work trips I could easily do by public transport but in this weather no other passengers would appreciate witnessing me dissolve in my own sweat on the underground

Not at all as I don’t own a car nor does my partner. Indeed apart from a few months 40 years ago I have never owned one.

I have however made decisions in my life that mean this works for me. turning down jobs that were too far from my house to cycle to and living in a flat near a main line station and on a good bus route.

There are sometimes I want to do things that would be very inconvenient without a car – I then either pay for a taxi or hire a car. Huge savings over car ownership tho – just its painful when the taxi cost £100+ I also have to be creative at times – for example using a trailer on my bike to get a sink back from B+Q. I also get a lot of stuff delivered. I have carried 27m of copper pipe on my bike and also 9 rolls of loft insulation. the most awkard one recently was needing a sheet of ply at short notice. I had to carry it back from the builders yard to my flat – about a mile. that hurt.

Going to places to cycle with pals when they are driving I usually cycle to their house to get a lift and offer petrol money. Otherwise I usually ride to ride. I don’t really like driving to ride anyway

Not owning a car also sets you free in some ways – and example is we do a fair amount of walking point to point. You can’t do this with a car as yo have to return to your car. If you owned a car you wouldn’t do this but getting creative with pubic transport means you can. Example is we have walked the entire coast from the Border to Dundee over two years – all point to point by public transport. ie train to Dunbar, walk to north berwick, train home

My parents live 50 miles away. Cycle into town, train to glasgow with my bike, cycle to their house. takes 10 mins longer than driving on a good day for driving, takes an hour less than a bad day for driving. Costs less than driving

shopping – 10 min walk to the local shopping street / supermarket

Too late for an edit, but noticed last time I was in Homebase, they now have a free loaner cargo trike to get your stuff home.