[Closed] How attached to your car are you?

Would it not have made more sense to post your poll on a forum that has a poll option when starting a thread?

Nah! Wanted to see what you guys thought! Answer the question!

Was a 1), now a 6)

Scrapped the car about 5 years ago. Probably use the wife's car less than 5 times a year to get to work, and cycle or run the rest.

No choice but to drive to my current place of work.

I wouldn’t survive the week if I rode in and back. 24 miles each way with approx 3000 ft of climbing one way. That would be before and after a 12 hour shift. No public transport unless I want to ride 3 buses each way taking 3 hours.

1...35 miles approx ( location changes) each way x 4 times weekly to get from deepest darkest Northumberland to the bright city lights of Tyneside ..
Public transport is simply not an option ..I couldn't get there in time ..neither using my bike for even part of the journey ..

No alternative but to always use my car, too far to cycle and publuc transport none existent!

Don’t get too caught up in the current practicality. Imagine there was a bus or a bike path, would you rather use them or do you like driving that much?

1. I'd like to ride into work and back every day but the car is needed for the job as is all the crap in the boot and back seat. The required response time out of hours wouldn't let me cycle in and we have nowhere safe to store a bike and nowhere to change or clean up after.

The complete opposite of when I worked at the council but that was a terrible job that made me want to kill people.

@rs...I like driving and fortunately for me live in a part of the country where congestion isn't too much of an issue until you reach the outskirts of the city ..this also means that I can travel at speeds many of the goody two shoes on the forum would deem inappropriate ..but traffic is light ..and I prefer to look at it as having a bit of enjoyment ..
Shoot me now !

My excuses, I could ride to work, it's even a nice ride 9 miles 7 of that on the canal.
The trouble is 12 hr shifts 11 of which I'm on my feet.
Takes half an hour to work by car cycling would make it a 14hr day.
At the moment if driving on nights I have time for dinner with wife before leaving for work and breakfast the next morning. If cycling I wouldn't see her
I do sometimes ride on a Saturday night if weather is nice and lights not needed.
Most of my other riding is from the front door. Only managed 5000 diesel driven miles per year for last 4 years

7) van using self employed manual worker ,mostly drive to ride decent trails .

1) Only about six miles but I don’t enjoy riding on roads and I cycle for pleasure.

I’m currently working 180 miles from home, so as much as I’d like to walk it isn’t really practical.
I also have a weekend car which I drive for fun.

I wfh, but in every past situation I have mostly chosen to live somewhere to make 6 happen. Driving into Manchester, central London etc, was never the quickest way there.

6 always, but I live 5m from work

Another very active shift worker here, just up and completely wiped. Like daz it's a relatively short cycle at 7.5 miles but means getting up earlier and rushing out.

Greens carpark tax is going to hit a lot of folk at my site, nearest bus stop is several miles away and no service when it is needed. Great in principle but utterly woeful in execution.

I cycle to work whenever I can, usually 2 or 3 times a week. If I had no other commitments I'd ride 5 days a week.

Not very, but timescales of a child mean i have to be home at 3:25pm from work, which means i have to be in the office at 6am. If i cycle to work, i'm then having to be leaving the house at 4:30 to get in on time and get back in time. It's not terribly practical.
That should change in Sept as he goes to big school so will get a key.

Both me and my wife are essential car users for work so have to take them to do our jobs. If the council got lease/pool vehicles then I'd definitely cycle or get the bus most of the time and we'd get rid of one car.

My chauffeur takes me.

Similar to beefheart. 150 miles away from home. Drive to work Monday, drive home on Wednesday night. Public transport isn’t an option.
Thursday morning I’m in London so ride to the station, only 5 miles.

I love my car, but commute by bike. But I can't see that as an option!

4
My commute by bike on road is pretty safe and when it's dry I can do it almost all off road on some fun trails.
Having the energy and motivation to do it is the problem. My commute is only 12km each way but 300m of climbing on the way in and 225m on the way home. I like to ride for fun on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday nights, and I'm on my feet all day at work.
So generally I ride to work on Thurs, Friday and sometimes Mondays in the summer.

Although today it's windy and raining so I'm going by car!

1 as my office doesn't have shower/changing facilities I consider suitable.

8) public. Transport or.bike are the practical options and mix it up depending on how I feel. Driving would involve delays both ways and not enough parking at work. Would also cost more.

Hardly ever drive either my Type 2 or T5 these days only used for holidays and weekends away.

I cycle commute to a clients office in London 2 or 3 times a week avg 38 miles and 3 hrs per day which is as quick as bike to station, train and tube - driving would be miserable, expensive and selfish.

Just started working for a new client in Buckinghamshire - have driven the wife's car so far as haven't plucked up the courage to use the only shower which is located in a dry wet room in the visitors/disabled toilet behind the reception desk and looks never to have been used! That would be 50 miles and 4 hours per day once or twice a week where as the car is 40 mins. Would still prefer to cycle.

25 miles each way, no showers, try and ride to work as often as it's practical.

In the summer when based in the office that's 3x a week, at the moment it's 0 because im working away from home.

If do it 5 days a week if I could but either need the car for work or driving to go mountainbiking in the evening a couple of times a week.

It's not even that sweaty as it's cool in the morning and takes about 1h50, and the m4 can take an hour on a good day. So it only really means missing breakfast which I can then have at my desk and 50min out of my evening in return for 4 hours biking! Seems like a god deal to me!

I drive to work because I am then out in meetings, schools and nurseries most days.
Public transport to some places is possible, but often much, much longer.
I manage to ride once a fortnight or so.
Yes I do choose car when I should ride some days.
I would love to go down to one car.

Not really any of the above.

Train whenever work and domestic diary allows.

Car if likely to be working in office beyond about 730 (empty roads means it's only 40 minutes to drive home vs. an hour of train and walk but at rush hour 1h20 is not uncommon in the car).

I probably manage about 50/50 over a year excluding long distance trips away but it varies heavily week to week.

Don’t get too caught up in the current practicality. Imagine there was a bus or a bike path, would you rather use them or do you like driving that much?

I do like driving but it is also quicker and cheaper than using a bus. The bus has no benefits whatsoever to me. Unless the bus stops outside my door, drops me off at the front door of my workplace and doesn't stop once in between then it may be viable. Otherwise it is adding an hour onto a 20 minute car drive.

I work from home now, car sits on the drive looking pretty.

It varies for me - I work from home when not due out for meetings. I was just commenting to my wife this morning that the car hasn't moved off the drive in at least a week(which is nice). However the week prior I had to visit every city in Scotland for work on different days.

Next week is looking busy again though...

I’m a 1 through necessity and I hate it. I used to run commute in Sheffield which was perfect, I now have a 70 mile round trip in the highlands of Scotland.

It won’t be forever and living here far outweighs this only downside.

1 - it's an 80 mile round trip.

I have previously driven some of the way & then cycled the last 13 miles or so, but currently the extra time that takes makes it unfeasible.

If I had a commute of up to 15 miles or so, I'd probably cycle most days assuming there was a safe route.

I don't drive to work, I do drive to nursery and then to park and ride. In an ideal world I'd happily scrap the car as far as work is concerned and if a house move comes off soon then pretty much can.

Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out

I used to cycle to work most days, unless I needed the car to go to site.

But it stopped being pleasant and ended up just being a chore and making me angry so I stopped. Every now and then I have a spate of cycling in again but it doesn't last long before stuff gets in the way or I'm shouting at drivers again. Traffic is also shit though, and i'm starting to think of cycling in again as I'm supposed to training for a triathlon.....

Public transport is actually fairly good in terms choice of buses/trains combs, but it takes too long and is full of people coughing all over you or talking really loudly about their 'problems' on their phones.....

I was at my last job five years, the office was 21km from home. In that time I drove to work maybe half a dozen times, the rest of the time was either bike or train. The times I did drive in it was because I had to carry something to/from work that I couldn't physically carry myself. It was so rare that I had to inform the others in the office know so that they didn't get upset about one of the limited parking places being used by an unknown car.

Current job varies from walking 50 metres from the house to a two hour car journey.

1). Work 35 miles away and no public transport option.

No brainer 6 for me

15 minute train journey plus 10 and 5 minute walk at either end, £95 per month metrocard versus 1+ hour drive (mainly stationary), c£8 per day parking plus petrol.

Not to mention freedom for spontaneous after work beers

We got a house specifically to be train commutable.

You've forgot cost.

It's still way cheaper for me to run a car than any public transport options available to me.

1. its 29 miles each way with the Dartford crossing half-way.

If i lived <15 miles from work and it was a nice (fairly flat) route i'd ride 3 days a week in the summer.

6. Try to ride every day. Sometimes need to drive in to bring change of clothes, etc. Hate driving, so not at all attached to it.

Work from home, use the car two or three times a week if we absolutely have to (ie need to get heavy or bulky boxes to the post office), include a big shop or a trip up to my mam's (30 miles away) if we have the car out up that way, otherwise we walk or cycle everywhere else. We sometimes don't use the car all week, other times we end up 'having' (for want of a cargo bike!) to take it out a few times in a week.

I like the car we have, it's great, but I don't want to live in it or anything.

1.

I hate cycling 🚴‍♀️

1
Impossible to due my job without Transit van full of stuff.

I was a 1, but not by choice. The cycle to work was an hour+ each way on a shitty trunk road and I valued my life too much to do that.

Since moving to Sweden I am a 6. We have a car (for weekend trips if we do them), but I cycle to work every day. In a year, I have only not cycled for 5 days. On those days, I took the bus.

6.... Mostly.

Depends on where and when I'm working and whether I need to take tools.

Haven't touched the van for work (nor privately) for the last two weeks and probably won't use it until I drive down to Italy mid-April.

I've one customer I need to drive to as they're 54km away, but we generally car share. Mostly I'm in and around Munich and most jobs can be reached easily by bike or public transport. Will usually take the bike depending on weather and time of day.

I don't commute but even when I did it's been many years since I used the car - always train or bike into London.

Nursery run though - it's 20-odd minutes walk away or about 4 mins in the car. With one kid I'd try to walk/pushchair it or use the bike and trailer when I could. With two kids by the time I've got them both ready I just want to throw them in the car and get them there. At least that's all on electric not petrol. Will reevaluate when the days get a bit longer.

What's "transit"? Public transport?

Unfortunately i live in a rural area with absolutely no public transport and work is 29 miles away.

I tried it for a year riding the 58 miles a day and ended up with depression and chronic fatigue from overdoing it as a result, know only coming to an end of it after 16 months! You get to a point where the enjoyment of riding goes out of the window and it becomes a chore, plus i got knocked off twice.

Is the OP a survey monkey in disguise??

1.

12 miles each way on a morning would mean getting up earlier getting home later and seeing less of the kids as a result. Had a huge barney with someone on a now dead forum a few years back as he couldn't understand that I'd rather be at home with family than extending my working day. If I worked closer to home I'd ride for definite but until that happens I'm in the car.

Attached to my specific car (Civic) - yes in that I love driving it. Best car I've owned.

However I'm not that attached to driving a car for a commute and if it was possible I'd ride or take public transport to work (have done in the past when it suited). So 6.

At the moment it's just not possible (well, 3 or 4 hours to ride depending if lethal road routes or off road, and 2 hours by train - for a 30 mile journey!).

Wouldn't sell the car though. I need transport to rural ride locations that are too far to ride to and too difficult to get to by public transport. This also means sticking to fossil fuel at the moment as a leccy car isn't going to be practical for long trips (not if it means stopping every 100 miles or so to charge up for an hour and not having charging points in remote rural locations).

Ideal commute involves mostly off road, options to mix up the route and have a play on the way, with secure bike store and shower facilities at office.

Or better, work from home, trails nearby. I'm doing that couple times a week at least, but get a bit fixated on work and don't get out for an hour or so in the day when I should do really.

We are moving house - current 42 mile commute (round trip) is tolerable and I have a fairly car-free route, but adds three hours to my working day, meaning I miss out on seeing the children before they go to bed.

New house is five miles from work - I'm hoping to cycle on multiple days per week, but will have to factor in nursery and school drop offs.

1.
Would love to cycle but not practical due to a few hundred kilos of kit and covering the whole country.
Admittedly a lot of my work is in London but the kit is too bulky for public transport or cycle.

I could pretend to commute in a green way by leaving the van at the yard but I’d have to then drive further back on myself to the motorway. So pointless.

I would give up the car for commuting and cycle everyday other than for bad weather if the roads around me weren’t as sketchy as they are. I know my gf would do this too for the hotter months.

6.

I already cycle, and if I was changing jobs I would see having to commute by car as a significant negative on whether I would want to take up that job.

Currently I drive about one weekend a month - if MrsDoris didn't commute by car I think we'd go more for a car club style thing.

Thankfully I telecommute as my current customer is in Vevey and I'm in the outskirts of Sunderland, other wise it would be 1 + Plane(s) + train(s) + walk, which I did for the last 2 years in Frankfurt.

I had a local customer a few years ago and that was mainly 4. Much faster than having to drive through Newcastle.

Drive all winter (to the station for my commute), ride in the spring, summer, autumn when I am able/when weather is okay.

I did 1,800 miles in the car last year in total.

deadkenny
and 2 hours by train – for a 30 mile journey!

Though thinking about it, it can often take 1.5hrs by car with traffic, 2 worst. Though train route is a right faff with walks, changes and a bus. Not sure if I can get a bike on the train in the morning either, but there are no showers at the office anyway.

When I was office based and commuted, I was a 3 or 4, commuting about 10 miles each way. Once a week or so I'd come back over the downs, adding another 5 miles or so. This was great. I did find that after 3 days on the trot, and often working 8-6 plus the commute, I was pretty tired. I was also pretty bloody fit.

Now I'm on the road all the time, so drive everyday. I try to park somewhere central and walk to appointments in a town, rather than move the car between them, but that's it. Fitness hasn't suffered too badly as I finish early enough to spend time exploring new places when I'm away, but my driving miles have increased significantly.

Otherwise, I couldn't live without the car, and still have the outdoor lifestyle I enjoy. On days off, I'm normally either out with the canoe or the bike, or visiting nature reserves or similar, and though a small amount of this is doable from home (well, not the canoeing), I like to travel to new places too. I like to think I walk or ride for most short "popping out" tasks, but I'd probably be exaggerating the "most" from "some".

Safety is not an excuse not to cycle. Despite STW being a very efficient forum for reporting every single accident and incident and minor infraction cyclists experience on British roads it just serves to distort that actual picture that cycling on British roads is safer now than ever and getting safer. Of course it very much depends on the roads you'd cycle on if you were to commute on your bike and each individual has to make that risk assessment themselves or change to an alternative route that might be safer. But ultimately British roads are safe for cyclists. 113 cyclists were killed on British roads last year (slightly up by a few from the year before)...however in 1934 over 1,500 cyclists were killed and there were far fewer cars on the roads back then. We've probably hit that bottom plateau and wont see any headway into that circa 113 annual deaths...a good portion of that are cyclists not taking basic safety precautions themselves and putting themselves in unnecessary danger, so not all the fault of drivers. Just yesterday I saw a cyclist nearly get knocked off as he steamed into a situation where there were a number of cars all jostling for position all fighting for the same reducing space, and the cyclist just went steaming in there at speed without checking if he'd been seen, was nearly knocked off, but for the evasive manoeuvring of a couple of cars, who were then greeted with a loud verbal dressing down from the cyclist with much expletives accompanied by the usual hand gestures. Clearly that's one cyclist that would greatly benefit from some sort of risk assessment training.

I'd happily cycle more, but struggle to do it daily at the mo due to dropping kids off in the morning and other things that mean I need the speed of being able to use the car...but I tend to manage two to three days over the summer. I could manage more over the more inclement months if I were not such a soft fair weather cyclist, so no excuses there - must try harder. But certainly where I live and work a good percentage of my work colleagues probably live within easy cycling distance from work so plenty of scope to get more people out of their cars.

Mostly 6.

I work from home now but when i commuted I would ride in every day most of the year. On the occasional times that I got up feeling knackered or the weather looked a little testing I'd take the train. That was probably about 10-15 times a year.

Haven't driven to work for about 20 years. But that is mostly because I live on the outskirts of a major city with good transport links which gives me lots of options.

1) of necessity, but if (when!) I get a job closer to home, it'll be as close to 6) as I can get.

I've never learned to drive, so after uni I bought a house where I could walk, cycle or take public transport to things and only applied for jobs which I could get to by walking, cycling or on public transport.

Not sure where on the OP's scale that falls.

Can I choose...

7. Ride Motorbike unless weather is truly s**t, then use car.

No, 7 is van use. 8 is public transport 😉

Thanks for the replies everyone. During high profile transportation projects, you often hear comments such as nobody will get out of their car. We were debating at work how many people are actually die hard drivers and how many would be willing to switch if they had the option, even a day or two. So say you wanted to reduce vehicles along a corridor by 10%, could those die hards keep driving and say so many of the others shift. That’s where I was going with this.

I had 6 months work in central Liverpool, some 15 miles away. My next door neighbour worked in the next block to me. We used to set off at the same time, him in his car and me on my bike. I frequently got to work before he did. I frequently got home before some guys in their car passed me on the way home. I got to learn the timings on all the traffic lights, and could always gain a precious few seconds to be up and riding before the cars came at me. I also learned a few decent rat runs. This was over winter when I was in full winter gear. I was bloody fit by the time March came.

Mind you I was also knackered, and usually found an excuse to have at least one day either working from home, or going out by car on visits. Would I cycle into Liverpool now? No chance; not for the traffic, but the roads are not safe. One stretch has had road works on it for 3 years, and the rest are so potholed that weaving to miss them is a big danger.

I'd give up the car for work if I could. down to 3/5 days in the office now and do try to part ride in the summer at least once a week for some of those days. the full trip is too much to ride. 100% homeworking isn't an option either.

I work with someone who drives 2 miles to work everyday, and then to the supermarket less than half a mile away every lunchtime, despite it being quicker to walk.