[Closed] How reliant are you on your car?

[quote=tjagain ]Scotroutes - yes you can - but its very hard to get a bus if you have a car outside and some folk who have joined us on these walks found the concept of leaving the car at home difficult to get their head round
As you know, it's never phased me 🙂 One of lifes pleasures is heading away from the house on foot or by bike knowing the car/van will be left behind for a few days or so.

[quote=km79 ]Two cars [b]and a friend[/b] opens up a lot of point to point walking not accessible by public transport.
I think you can see the flaw in your argument here 🙂

I think you can see the flaw in your argument here

quite reliant, but thankfully not dependent. wind back couple of years, car fails MOT, takes us good month or so to source a replacement car - not the end of the world.

Oi scotroutes - I have friends. Ok to some they are trolls but to me they are my friends
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3176/2920571243_84d6e4fa1b_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3176/2920571243_84d6e4fa1b_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/5s5G5B ]Trolls[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/25846484@N04/ ]TandemJeremy[/url], on Flickr

I cycle everywhere so no problem for me to loose the car.

The kids though cause a problem - I drive them to clubs 6 days a week. No way I/we could do this without a car, just not enough time.

Not very, work for me and Mrs hoppy, Jr's school and the shops are all walking distance. Car gets used for going to clients/other offices and evening/weekend stuff like going biking and the campervan is for holidays.

I cycle lots, walk whenever possible, have a motorbike and also a car.

Could I cope with no car? Well, assuming I could keep the motorbike, I guess I could at a push. But the car lets me transport stuff, is a safer way to travel in winter & dark evenings and is more relaxing on long journeys.

So fairly reliant but it's not a must-have ultimately.

Far too much here too.

For work - not very
For kiddie duties - a fair bit but could manage a bit more without
but its absolutely essential for food shopping as I live in the end of nowhere in Norway and need to drive to the stores
and I have a mountain cabin so its the only way to get there. I suppose I could walk but it would take me 5 days at least and not sure my 4 yr old would be impressed

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.

I'VE read articles like that to, they always choose quite a expensive way of owning a car though and make a lot of assumptions about work place being with in good public transport access. Don't get me wrong, many people could easily reduce car usage but when the examples fail to be similar to Their lives it makes a difficult sell.

I am absolutely certain that my car hire . public transport and hire car use is far less than owning a car. a lot less than £2000 a year including fuel. Last 12 months? under a grand and also I get the vehicle that suits my needs - from a town runabout to a van
The trip to my parents. £12 by train for 100 mile round trip. thats around the cost of the petrol ( 20 stop start urban miles, 80 motorway miles)

Remember in totting up the cost of your car to include everything,. servicing, tyres, repairs, insurance, VED, depreciation etc. Most folk hugely underestimate their car costs

Its just that you don't notice putting £50 in petrol in the tank, you notice a £50 taxi fare or £100 car hire

Very.

I'd be ok with the commute (if/when the trains are running) but I regularly need to travel in the working day to places that public transport or a bike just doesn't reach time or cost effectively or at all. Many of the places would require an overnight stay if I was to be there on time in the morning by train. Getting to most out of town commercial and industrial parks seems to be distressingly difficult by public transport.

Also if we want to visit my family it would cost the thick end of £300 to get four of us the 180 miles to the nearest mainline station and another 50 on taxis. Marginal cost in the car is less than half that (given I need it as a work tool and that cost is sunk) and I don't have to lug school age kids through central London at 8.00 on a Friday night.

Not much. I work from home and can walk to a semi decent array of local shops, anything heavy i could get delivered and I have good transport links into London should I want a bit more variety. The only regular journey that's too far to walk is to the gym and I cycle there.

I only keep the car for the convenience of being able to get out into the countryside at the weekends, or to give me the option to do things with a minimum of forethought. I probably only put petrol in every other month which gives some indicator of how little it gets used.

As others have suggested..not being reliant on a car didnt happen bu chance. Its been years in the choosing of homes and schools and careers.

100% reliant. No site visits, no money.
But then when I'm not on site I can work from home, so no dramas there.

TJ you're right about people not seeing the real costs. Especially if you only drive once or twice a week or fortnight.

I think it's frequency of need that drives the hire vs. own argument most though.

If (like me) you need for work or whatever to drive nearly every day (except a rare joyful driving free day) you're stuck with those largely fixed costs regardless so the marginal cost of a given trip drops because the costs of insurance, ved (and a lot of the depreciation), part of the service cost etc are sunk the minute you buy a car.

25k miles a year, but I hope to reduce this in the near future by moving nearer to a more connected train station and using the Brompton more.

The ying to this yang is that I did work from home for 10 years previously, and I'd rather spend 2 hrs a day driving than WFH full time again.

Garagedweller - but it wouldn't cost you that much to visit family - thats when you would use a hire car. so around £75 over the petrol cost. ( I have had weekend care hires for under £50 for an astra size)

Obviously tho if you use a car for work then non car ownership wouldn't work for you while you are in that job

It always amuses me ( not aimed at GD particularly) how often people make up odd excuses for not using public transport.

We have 3 cars.(well 1 car , my landy and the camper van)

But still not reliant on them.

Wife cycles to work.

I go to work on an a380

The landies my main car and has done 2.5k In 2 years -could probably hire for this use but in winter it's unlikely I'll be able to hire a 4*4 at short notice for the snow and floods we get up our way

Wife's cars does 8k a year as the family tool.

The campervan is purely a leisure tool.

We are rural but specifically chosen so we are near to cycle path/bus route (which is by far quicker than the car to get to town) and a village with all amenities less than 10minutes bike bike.

We live in a city centre and commute by bike, so, we... er ...have 2 vehicles. 😳 We are reliant on one and not the other.

The first is admittedly a campervan, which is used for all general family activities and trips. It's not strictly a car, but we do depend on it for leisure and laughs. Annual mileage is c.6k.

We also have a Mini, which could realistically be replaced with car club use (which we've done in the past) and work hire cars. My work and random other needs seem to come and go, giving an annual mileage of around 2k. It's in great nick with only 16k on the clock, so I'm reluctant to sell-up hastily as it would be difficult to get another for a similar price.

My work is 7 miles from home and I wouldn't countenance driving. Equally, a good proportion of colleagues think I'm nuts for cycling. "Relying" on a car can depend a lot on perspectives of the possible.

In the distant past not very, could walk to station for commute into London and ride from my door. When I lived inside London Boris bike to work and ZipCar was enough at weekends (expensive vs having own car though). Now absolutely essential.

80 mile a day round trip for me five days a week.
16 miles a day round trip for the wife 4 days a week.

That's just work. We could move closer to mine but then she'd drive more or need a new job. Cars are 2004 and a 2008 diesel civics we own outright, so only noticeable cost is the fuel.

There are a couple of people I could car share with, but starting and finishing at the time I want is more important than saving a few quid and going in early/staying later.

I am very reliant on mine as I work 20+ miles from home and there's no public transport between Skipton and Harrogate that would be viable. Also have plenty of meetings in rural North Yorkshire which I couldn't reach without a car.

During the week - not very. Easy cycle to work and within walking ditance of a couple of supermarkets
Weekend - dependant. Kayak needs roof rack, dinghy needs towbar, not available on hire cars

teethgrinder - Member

so only noticeable cost is the fuel.

VED... Direct debit.
Tyres, occasional. Not weekly like the diesel.
Repairs... Price of parts only. I'll happily tackle any repair myself. In fact, new front pads on the little civic - £35, but they are Brembo.

Servicing.... 😳 one day.
Insurance not to bad but a PITA during it twice a year

More than I'd like to be - need it for shifting work stuff and transporting small person between various activities, but trying to work on ways to use it as little as possible, using a cargo bike instead where I can.

teethgrinder - so how much does that little lot add up to? I guess depreciation is only a few hundred a year on each of them.

I do cycle to work but not every day 45 mile round trip.
And local super market is 5 miles away. No bus service in the village.

So do use a car a fair few times a week. But also I do like to drive and go places so have a van and a little hot hatch as well as our defender.

Yes it's a few quid in ved and insurance but for now I don't want to sell any of them

Not very. We both cycle to work, there is a sainsburys local at the end of the road and we get veg delivered. there's also a bus stop at the end of the road with buses every 10 minutes or so to the city centre. We could get by just fine for the essentials (work/food) without it.

What it does enable us to do though is race bikes. This is very much non essential but I'd rather drive to an event with kit/tools/spares in the car than ride there without, even for races within riding distance. And it's even nicer not to have to ride home again!

We also use it as a campervan so it does decent mileage on holiday. Again, non-essential and without it we'd go on different sorts of holidays.

I used to be car free and just hired when I needed one which was quite freeing but my current car doesn't cost that much to keep running even if it only goes out once or twice a week.

Probably £70 pcm insurance, 2x£12 pcm VED, last two MOT's = big civic passed, little civic needed £50 of ARB drop links at the back and lower arms at the front.

Both are paid for. 2008 one was £5k 4 years ago (139k miles, 222k now). 2004 one was £1k 18 months ago and on 170k now.

Both will be kept until they die in such a way to make them uneconomical to fix - depreciation is not something that worried me, and even if it did the 2004 one would go for £1k all day long

The economics work out for us. 1 mile from my parents for childcare and close enough to hers without being too close! I do 5 days a week day shifts, she was working in a care home, but now a learning assistant in a special needs school - a job she actually likes - but it only min wage.

Public transport would be doable for her if she didn't have to get the kids to school 4 days a week (I do one when she's on a sleepover), and the schools (1st, middle and high) are all <15 mins walk.

Public transport for me would be train/bus - train - bus and take 3 hours each way. I did ride back once a couple of years ago, but it was 3.5h on a hardtail over Teesdale, Weardale and to the Tyne. Nothing if not scenic.

Overall compromises could be made, and I'd love to be able to ride to work regularly but it is what it is. I hear people pay up to a grand a month on childcare. Now to me, that's madness.

And I'm only a few mile on the bike from Chopwell #itsbetterthanhamsterley

Very - self employed - no van no money .

Complicated for me.

I work about 20 miles away from home, and ride it occasionally. Public transport is non existent to work. I wouldn't want to ride it every day though. I also am out once/twice a week on site with customers.

I 'could' sacrifice mine, but I get a decent car allowance from work so would also lose that (which pays for the car, all the running costs & my fuel) with my mileage allowance on top, i'm actually making a bit of money.

I live on the edge of a big city, with good transport links, a few local shops which I generally walk to anyway.

It would be a pain for recreational stuff as do a fair bit in the evenings. With all of the above, I would be reluctant to give up a car. But if I did, my life wouldn't be over, just a fair chunk more difficult.

I've managed to get to almost-40 without a driving licence. I expect I can manage the next 20 or 30 years without one too.

Re: Cost of motoring. Our current car is the first I've ever had from new and we used a finance deal to purchase it. I worked it out that with the repayments plus servicing and running costs that it cost more than the mortgage on the house! This was for a Skoda Roomster so hardly a luxury car. The total annual cost was nearly £5k. Since it's now paid off, the annual costs are around £2K.

Obviously if you buy a cheap "runner" then the initial costs are much lower but you've still VED, insurance, servicing and fuel to purchase.

Running costs don't need to be so high:

VED is nil on my car but most sensible ones will be under £100
Insurance, mines particularly low at c.£100 but most middle age people with a good driving history should be £200 ish
My car hasn't had any tyres in four years (it does need some now which will be £300
Fuel on a few thousand miles will be about £300
I do my own servicing but even if I paid for it a dealer service is £200

So thats well under £1k a year worst case and much less in my case.

I've been offered jobs with 20k more that would require a better car and a couple of hours travel each day but once you take the tax off the additional pay and a £500 a month for car lease your left with little to show for the poorer lifestyle.

Another "more than I'd like to be"... it sits on my drive all week as I cycle to work, but I have a 14 yo son, who has to be taken to rugby matches etc. and various things to occupy him over the weekend. So wouldn't be able to do without the car. Plus various social activities (gf lives 20odd miles away, mate lives 150 miles away). Bought a decent car when I had a decent job, no point downgrading it as it's so reliable - I have considered this many times!

Err, hard question to answer.
If all cars stopped working tomorrow, i'd be better placed than most to manage without. Work <10mi away, parents <10mi away, local coop, and Tesco only 5mi or a bus ride away. And no kids to ferry around places.
So in theory, if I had to manage, I could manage.
However, it'd make life rubbish. None of my cycling would be for fun any more, and my experience of public transport is generally that i'd rather cut my toes off with a spoon than use it.

I'm absolutely reliant on my car. I work 12hr shifts 16 miles away with no public transport links and I'm not fit/willing to add two hours a day to my working day, and on my days off I have a 44mile round trip school run to do, as the school my boys go to is decided by their mother.

Guttingly. I'm very envious of those posters that either survive fine without a car or do about 2.5k a year. Lovely lifestyle. Those rare days when our cars stay on the drive all day are celebrated in thins household.

Another more than I'd like though I am trying to be proactive in addressing that. The hardest part is getting anywhere as a group which is where the costs mount up. So yeah, £12 return edinburgh to glasgow is fair enough. Multiply that though and the car makes more sense with another person. Now add in the hassle of making other train connections and the journey time becomes much longer (it takes as long to get from Largs to Glasgow by train as it does to get just outside Cumbernauld by car barring peak times). So longer and more expensive. Then you have convenience, one train an hour in either direction on our line. And reliability, lost count how many times I've had to collect my wife after weather or signal failures have resulted in cancelled trains.

So yes, I'd love to ditch the car but its just too inconvenient. I could make life choices to address that but ultimately it would result in seeing people less, spending more on child care and giving up the hobbies I enjoy (not for humphing my rifles on a 20odd mile round trip by bike).

That said, there is more I can do to reduce my use, I just can't do it to the extent someone with good public transport links and local ammenities can.

I couldn't do what I do without a car as I need 200kg of kit daily for work and do call outs and standby all over the place. We had to move for my job which now means the wife has a 30 mile each way motorway commute.

Before this job, we both cycled into work daily.

If all cars stopped working tomorrow, i'd be better placed than most to manage without.

No you wouldn't. You'd be in the same shit as the rest of us.

When you cycle down to the shop to get a pint of milk, a loaf and a paper, you'd be disappointed to find the shop shut because nearly all the staff rely on their cars and, even if it's open, there'd be no bread or milk or newspapers or anything else that relies on delivery by van or truck.

Our entire society is utterly reliant on the internal combustion engine and anyone who thinks that they personally don't need cars to survive is deluding themselves. They don't need their own, they just need everyone elses to make the world work.

These days, not very. I commute by bike, do most errands on foot or by bike, have trailer for shopping etc. My wife is the the same, in fact the primary use for our car is to take the bikes places to ride that would otherwise be too far away. 3342 miles between MOTs (2 weeks ago that's why i know)

For a while we were reliant on it as my wife needed it for work, and a few years prior to that I had a job that required it for commuting. But we've made different life choices since then, we were very particular about where we bought our house last time we moved, and we've both made work related choices that facilitate short commutes possible by bike/foot/public transport. We sold the other car, and made a conscious effort to do more trips by bike, even things like towing huge loads of crap to the recycling centre/tip by bike instead of using the car.

The [i]reason [/i]is what might the interesting bit, it's mostly a deliberate choice we made a few years ago due to realising we were using the car a lot more than we should have done, but not just that we shouldn't but that we actually [i]disliked [/i]having to. I started to resent the cost, resent the stress of ownership and upkeep, resent the time spent sat in the car, and found myself increasingly bored and frustrated with modern driving and traffic.

Honestly it's been liberating, a lot less stress, a lot less money, and a lot more fun. I could live car free, but I don't think I'd want to as it is a massive enabler and convenience for many things. But now any big decision like where to move or a change of job would be massively influenced by a desire to NOT have to be reliant on a car if at all possible.

I don't think being evangelical about it and thinking everyone should be car free is right, but I think we should encourage people to think about how much they use their cars, whether they could make other choices, but more importantly [i]why[/i] they are dependant on their cars. For a lot of people it is essential for their job, and that's never going to change, but for a lot of people they've made choices based on the assumption that they have access to a car, whether consciously or unconsciously, and I'd much rather people made those choices consciously rather than sleepwalking themselves into situations.

Small changes can and do make a difference, but more than anything informed decisions are better ones based on assumptions and habits.

If all cars stopped working tomorrow, i'd be better placed than most to manage without.

No you wouldn't. You'd be in the same shit as the rest of us.

When you cycle down to the shop to get a pint of milk, a loaf and a paper, you'd be disappointed to find the shop shut because nearly all the staff rely on their cars and, even if it's open, there'd be no bread or milk or newspapers or anything else that relies on delivery by van or truck.

If it were only cars that stopped working, the vans and trucks could still deliver the milk and bread. It would probably take them less time too, as there'd be less congestion, making them cheaper.

Our entire society is utterly reliant on the internal combustion engine and anyone who thinks that they personally don't need cars to survive is deluding themselves. They don't need their own, they just need everyone elses to make the world work.

[i]Everyone[/i] elses? Only a fraction of car journeys are essential and only a fraction of those could be replaced by walking or cycling. The promotion/adoption of mass personal car use for urban transportation is one of the greatest mistakes we've made as a civilisation.

If it were only cars that stopped working, the vans and trucks could still deliver the milk and bread. It would probably take them less time too, as there'd be less congestion, making them cheaper

.....unless the owners of the now useless cars all immediately went out and bought vans?

The promotion/adoption of mass personal car use for urban transportation is one of the greatest mistakes we've made as a civilisation.

Agreed, but the practical reality is that it is a mistake that we have made and that would be very difficult to reverse.
So, until we find a way to solve the problem we are all, as a society, utterly reliant on cars even if we don't use them personally.