Can you do without a Car?

[saint-spoon]

We’ve got a car, a focus estate diesel. It does about 2,500 miles a year mainly to ferry our tent to where ever we are going and sometimes if we have got to do a big shop. We both ride our bicycles to work. I spend mre or MOT, insurance and tax than I do on fuel the latter averaging about £20 every month and a half or so.

[smallholderwannabe]

When I got a job at the same place as my husband, we got rid of my car. So now we run just one and I can't imagine being without it. At least it is normally carrying two people. To get to work by bus would mean taking two buses with a walk at either end. For two of us, this probably means that it would cost far more to go by bus (even with a monthly bus pass) than running the car... It might even be more environmentally friendly to go to work by car as the bus route is like going round three sides of a square. It also takes about one quarter of the time to travel by car, too.

Like Irina, I normally plan to do shopping on the way home from work to save a special journey and often do a 'circular trip' to save on fuel. We normally drive less than 4,000 miles a year, including going on holiday.

I live in a city and think that I ought to be able to do without a car except for holidays. After all, we do have a bus service - and it is great if you happen to want to go where the buses are going. It just doesn't work out the way you want, sometimes.

[jill]

OK, I have a 4x4. Paid cash for it 4 years ago and it is bl***y well gonna last me till the oil runs out. It's a diesel and I have thought about making my own biodiesel but can't be bothered with all the tax stuff. I agree with Wendy, that the government should be doing more to find alternative fuels. But for the cars we ALREADY have. I won't buy another car, where's the common sense in building new cars when the ones we have could be converted (in theory).
Anyway, I got a 4x4 because I have 4 kids (although they are now of an age when they will be getting their own cars), a big dog, and a caravan. My 2nd son has cerebral palsy and at 22 has a big wheelchair which folds into a large cube and just about fits into the boot (the wheelchair, not the son!). A friend of mine also uses a large wheelchair and says that my car is the easiest one to get in and out of.

I get better mileage in this car than I did in my old car, a Vauxhall Astra. I'm taking all of my holidays within this country so therefore benefitting our tourist trade and local communities rather than flying abroad to churn out massive amounts of CO2.

So could I live without my car? Yes, of course, but I'm gonna cause mayhem on the motorway by "pushing" my caravan!

[jill]

Rachell24 - I too worked in a call centre where we had to ask permission to go to the toilet. If we went more than twice in ONE WEEK (10 hour shifts per day), then we were called into a meeting to find out if we had any medical conditions they should be aware of! And this was the NHS.
My last day there I spent about 5 hours in the toilet, 4 hours outside smoking, 1/2 hour for lunch, 2 x 10minute tea breaks and 10 minutes sending funny emails!!!!



[/quote]

[mellonia]

I don't drive and have survived, i have two kids, we moved house so we could be near the school of our choice, and walking distance, and i pick jobs that are nearby, i work in admin so when a job came up at my kids school i thought thats handy, anyway hated the lady i worked with she was horrible, so stayed a year and got a job at another school 10 mins away, on my bike the headteacher also rides her bike to work so its a great leveller. I also chose a job at school to fit in with the kids, so no more childcare fees in the holidays,there are alsorts of jobs in school, dinner ladies, teaching assistants, admin teams. It isn't easy not driving i don't like getting buses to go into town, but needs must, my hubby drives so even when i do my big shop he sits at home watching telly, and looking after kids as they hate shopping and i hate taking them, it costs so much more, and i walk about a mile to the supermarket then he comes one hour later and picks me up with the shopping. When we both didn't have a car i used to do a massive shop every two weeks and get a taxi home, one way.

My daughter has always been to dance classes and brownies, i just make sure its nearby, we walk to the sports centre,get our haircut, my sisters, we cycle to my mothers. She can't go cheerleading as its too far away which i am disappointed about, but neighbours kids don't do any clubs and they have a car.

I see it as keep fit, i don,t need to go to a gym so saving time in that respect. i am a good size 14 so scared in case i put loads of weight on, that has stopped my learning to drive in my forties. The only thing i would like to drive for is when my kids start going to pubs and clubs i would like to make sure i could pick them up. Plus another factor is on my wages it would not be possible to drive and run a car and eat.

i love my job its the best job i have ever done, its a in a special school for kids with severe learning difficulties.

Hope this is of help, sorry if i have waffled on, but most people i pass on my way to work are in the traffic jams, so would take me the same amount of time, i also notice that you can't get parked near the school so don't have to walk too much further.

[Meanqueen]

What a great post, Mellonia.

You don't let your lack of wheels hold you back in any way, some very good ideas there. Choosing a job to suit your location, and finding leisure activities close by.

All that healthy excercise you and your family are getting will pay dividends in the long term, for you and the planet.

Maybe, when the times comes when your kids need a taxi home, your hubby will only be too pleased to collect them.

Ilona

[misty]

I've got a Nissan Terrano 4x4 diesel which smells like a chip shop. It is used for towing horse muck to the farmers heap, harrowing and rolling two fields, collecting horse muck from the fields, towing a water bowser to and from fields, collecting feed, taking dog, and going to local shops. To go into town I use my Husband's small car. We have more 4 x 4s that are kept immaculatly clean, are frightened to go up the bank to make way for passing and the drivers don't know where reverse is! We have very high banks and in the summer high vegetation so a car with some visibility is safer. I would love to use my horse to go to the village but the cars just ignore the limite and it isn't safe. When the government make is safer for people to walk, cycle and ride then less cars would be needed.

[Katt]

Never had a car, don't miss what you've never had.

Katt

[saint-spoon]

I would love to use my horse to go to the village but the cars just ignore the limite and it isn't safe. When the government make is safer for people to walk, cycle and ride then less cars would be needed.

White vans, 4x4s doing the three hundred yard school run and boy/girl racers really annoy me. I run the gauntlet every day on my way to work; there's one local home improvement firm that's nearly taken me out on numerous occasions, the other morning he was propping his mobile phone against his shoulder and trying to light a cigarette whilst driving. He was paying no attention to what was in front of him whatsoever. Fortunately it was just after half six in the morning and there was hardly anyone about; it was right outside a primary school so god only knows what could have happened had it been a few hours later. Perhaps he’d have been taken out by an immaculate freelander after the mother had dropped her child off.

[rachell24]

Rachell24 - I too worked in a call centre where we had to ask permission to go to the toilet. If we went more than twice in ONE WEEK (10 hour shifts per day), then we were called into a meeting to find out if we had any medical conditions they should be aware of! And this was the NHS.
My last day there I spent about 5 hours in the toilet, 4 hours outside smoking, 1/2 hour for lunch, 2 x 10minute tea breaks and 10 minutes sending funny emails!!!!

[/quote]

How disgusting, but not suprising. Big brother to the extreme. Thats why I had to get out, mine was a well known motoring organisation, and not Alcoholic anonymous. Actually, my name sums it up quite well, RAChell, ha ha. the extra l is my middle name. Your last day made me laugh. On my last day I left two hours early, I worked evenings though so no-one there to see. Did you see that programme about call centres last week? It made me mad, the dept I worked in set up an Indian call centre, only to shut it all down four months later when we were bought by someone else and they already had an Indian call centre. What an absolute waste of money, they had spent a fortune putting up all the English staff in 1st class hotels, all having a jolly. What about all the Indian staff. It makes my blood boil. That whole Indian call centre thing is outrageous in my opinion.


anyway, I can feel a rant coming on, lets get back to cars.

Still got mine at the moment, love to get rid, but I think Im too lazy.

[lou]

Mellonia i know what you mean.... i dont drive have 3 kids and my eldest who is almost 8, rides every other week, does pony club once a week, used to do gymnastics after school, goes to friends for tea then you have parties to get them from/to, etc, i cope, we live near the school so we walk, her friends mum takes them to pony club and my husband gets them on the way home from work, i can walk into town in 20mins, but the village i live in has 2 shops a dentist, doctor, chemist butchers and a flower shop and video shop (sounds like a small town!) so everything you need, we do our big shop once a week together, or online if i cant face taking 3 kids (my younger ones are 2and 3)

I do want to drive though if we move more rural which is the plan i just want to know i can if i have to for any reason, if that makes sense, i doubt we would get another car anyway.

[melons]

I need my car too, our village has no public transport either, there is no other way to travel 27 miles to work each way, but...it's the cheapest thing on earth to run, it's an 02 plate Clio, £35 a year tax, yes a year insurance costs them more to post it, that it costs me to pay for it & it's diesel, 60 miles to the gallon OH cycles 13 miles each way to work in the summer too, so we don't do so bad.

Near me, we have a disued railway track all the way to Cambridge, sleepers still on it the lot, so what do they decide to do, spend millions on it making it into a guided bus route, no one round where I live will be seen dead on a bus, way too snobby, so it'll be another Goverment ornament costing thousands, no one will use it, it'll never be cheaper than a car or as conveinient, until it's cheaper & less hassle than the current bus service going in the same direction, people will never get out of their cars.
Classic local Goverment, the same one who spent two hundred & fifty thousand pounds on a new layby on the A14, for it to be instantly condemed & closed as too dangerous to exit from

[saint-spoon]

We’ve got a disused railway line (actually several) that has been turned into a cycle path/ walkway. It is actually really quite good for keeping cyclists off the overly busy roads. Parts of it have been built on or sold to folk causing it to be diverted to the usual ten inch strip of red surface at the edge of a road (about the width of a drain cover). Unfortunately the on road sections aren’t really wide enough and haven’t, in the main, been designated as no parking; the obvious consequent is that selfish drivers use it as an auxiliary car park forcing cyclists out into the road. I wouldn’t mind so much but they do that instead of walking the hundred yards from the nearest FREE public car park.

[Muppet9204]

I am about to find out

We run a small car which OH uses to get to work (27 miles away).

We also have a 4x4 which I use to get to work and for general running about.

Due to having to roll a car loan and a loan together at a time of crisis, we owe more on the 4x4 than it is worth. It has just cost us £1100 for a service, timing belt and repair to the fuel pump

Have decided that it has to go. I have always worked full time, been independant financially and run a car. Last year I downsized drastically and got a part time job near to home.

It is costing me more to run the car than I am earning in a month.

Once we sell the car, I will have to carry on working until the whole loan is paid off. This should be about 5 months.

I live in a rural area and buses are not worth thinking about for getting to work. I can walk to work, 2 miles each way, albeit the walk back is all up hill and STEEP.

I can get my main shop online. I can get a bus once a week to the nearby town to meet my friend for lunch. Not prepared to be a total hermit.

Once Winter kicks in, I am not sure I will fancy the walk to work so may well give up on the basis that I won't be any worse off than when i was working and running the car.... probably a bit better off.

It will though be so strange. At home all day with just an aging cat and the chickens to keep me sane.

The lovely thing is though that it will be a £12,000 loan we can say goodbye to HURRAH!

[Mo]

I'm sure when I was a Playgroup supervisor it cost more to run my car than I earned (this was before the minimum wage and it was considered as a semi-voluntary thing). But I didn't want to be a hermit, we were 1mile from the nearest village, 4m from the village that I worked in. I did cycle or get a lift then walk part way, once or twice when the car was giving trouble but there was too much to carry really.