Accidentally car-free

[Deleted member 1258]

I was car free for about thirty years, I passed my car test about 1982, my motorcycle test in 1972, but didn't buy my own car till 2012. The car makes life easier and is more convenient, but I don't usually drive it a great deal.

 

[subaqua]

I understand you not needing a car in London but in the countryside, it is a very different story. A car is a necessity.

I grew up in Rural N Wales. I disagree. The bus services were terrible but we still coped. There wasn't many fat people either... funnily enough the fattest person i knew was the kid who got ferried everywhere by car. but thats just anecdotal evidence so will be called out as obblox no doubt.

 

[FishFright]

I've never owned a car.

Same here.

 

[Drago]

People tend not to own cars these days, They lease them on PCP plans, never own them, yet have to pay to service and maintain someone elses car.

 

[ColinJ]

I am off to a Welsh village next week. I don't drive and even though my friend passed her driving test recently she hasn't yet bought a car so we will be travelling there by train and bike. While there we will get about on foot, bike, and train. If having a car away from towns and cities is "a necessity" then we are going to be in big trouble!

 

[mjr]

I was car free for about thirty years, I passed my car test about 1982, my motorcycle test in 1972, but didn't buy my own car till 2012. The car makes life easier and is more convenient, but I don't usually drive it a great deal.

Calling cars a necessity is something old unfit motorist councillors and MPs do to justify their policies that hand huge sums of money to private contractors who build/rebuild roads to make life easier for old unfit motorists. It's disappointing to see someone here has swallowed it.

 

[welsh dragon]

I am off to a Welsh village next week. I don't drive and even though my friend passed her driving test recently she hasn't yet bought a car so we will be travelling there by train and bike. While there we will get about on foot, bike, and train. If having a car away from towns and cities is "a necessity" then we are going to be in big trouble!

I think going on holiday for a few days and coping isn't much of a strain at all. However, to live out here where buses are far and few between day to day living is a bugger without one, especially with kids that need to be taken here and there, picking them up from school if they are ill, taking them to various clubs, picking them up after revision after school hours, and even just getting to work and back from work from a main town, when you might be able to get a train to within 20 miles of where you live, but the buses do not go to where you live, or stop running before your train gets in. The lack of buses is a real problem.

I hope you enjoy your time in Wales.

 

[Drago]

Calling cars a necessity is something old unfit motorist councillors and MPs do to justify their policies that hand huge sums of money to private contractors who build/rebuild roads to make life easier for old unfit motorists. It's disappointing to see someone here has swallowed it.

I concur. People survived and lived just fine before the car came along. Society has adapt3d in embrace the car, not the other way around.

In most cases the car is a convenience for lazy people, not essential.

 

[welsh dragon]

I concur. People survived and lived just fine before the car came along. Society has adapt3d in embrace the car, not the other way around.

In most cases the car is a convenience for lazy people, not essential.

I agree people managed before cars came along, however i don't think a horse and cart will be everyones cup of tea.

 

[Drago]

Indeed, but now we have bicycles. Look at Dave R, who goes for leisure rides 5 times longer than my total daily commute used to be (which I usually cycled).

In the majority of cases the barriers are nothing more than people's own objections and entrenched unwillingness to do anything other than sit in a car.

 

[welsh dragon]

Indeed, but now we have bicycles. Look at Dave R, who goes for leisure rides 5 times longer than my total daily commute used to be (which I usually cycled).

In the majority of cases the barriers are nothing more than people's own objections and entrenched unwillingness to do anything other than sit in a car.

Do you do all your shopping on your bicycle Drago? Probably not.

 

[Drago]

Minor bits, yes. Groceries get delivered.

Note my careful use of the words "most people". There will be exceptions, the disabled, folk in the remote highlands and islands, but for the most part the objections are banal. For most people there are viable alternatives to daily car use, but laziness, weak excuses, sheer inertia, and a government that does little to support alternatives all conspire to prevent most people from ever seeking out alternatives.

 

[welsh dragon]

I tried getting my food delivered once. The only supermarket that delivers here is Asda. What a shambles that was. Half the goods i ordered they didn't have. They sent what they considered to be alternatives (they wern't). Items where there wasn't an alternative at all didn't have any explanation as to why they were not there.

And the use by dates, or sell by dates were a joke. I think they must have raided the shelves to find the closest dates they possibly could and put them all in my shopping bag.


I did without a car for many years, but sometimes that just isn't possible, even in this day and age. I really wish it was as i could save a fortune.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Calling cars a necessity is something old unfit motorist councillors and MPs do to justify their policies that hand huge sums of money to private contractors who build/rebuild roads to make life easier for old unfit motorists. It's disappointing to see someone here has swallowed it.

I didn't call it a necessity I merely said it was easier and more convenient, which it is, I'm in my mid sixties, my Good Lady Wife is slightly older, not in the best of health and has mobility problems, where as I could easily go car free again my wife would be severely restricted if I did so.

 

[screenman]

I am off to a Welsh village next week. I don't drive and even though my friend passed her driving test recently she hasn't yet bought a car so we will be travelling there by train and bike. While there we will get about on foot, bike, and train. If having a car away from towns and cities is "a necessity" then we are going to be in big trouble!

I think if I did not work I would have the time to go car free. Certainly doubt I would enjoy it though.