It's on days like these.....

[srw]

I love my car, and at times it's a necessity. My sons under 13 football league has a radius of about 30 miles. As much as we love cycling a 60 mile round trip plus a match may be a bit cruel!

Your choice to have children.
Your choice to encourage one of them to play football (damn silly choice, BTW I there are far more interesting things for him to do of a Saturday).
Your choice to indulge him with a daddy-taxi each week rather than organise a minibus for the team, or car-sharing.

I don't see much necessity in any of those choices.

 

[theclaud]

you continue your flawed, unrealistic, nonsense argument that we should all make choices that mean we dont use our cars

Is that "my" argument, as in the one I haven't made?

 

[kerndog]

Talking of looking silly - you told us you'd had enough half a dozen pages ago. Flounces only work with a follow-through.

ok and now the brown nosers are here to massage some ego's.

your a bit late mate to come in here all flustered and try to join in. you look silly.

 

[srw]

Of course it's your choice...

And it was your choice to post on one of the cycling-related boards rather than on the fluffy cafe - where you would have been offered a cup of tea and a sit-down for your traumatic drive.

Probably a good thing you didn't post in Commuting, actually.

 

[theclaud]

ok and now the brown nosers are here to massage some ego's.

your a bit late mate to come in here all flustered and try to join in. you look silly.

Flustered? Hahahahahahahahaha!

 

[swansonj]

My wife and I have made a number of choices about our lifestyle. I am not inviting moral approval or censure here, I' proud of some and less proud of others, but the point is that all of these were choices.

We chose to live in a town with a decent comprehensive school in walking distance. We chose to confine our house search to houses within ten minutes walk of the railway station. We chose to buy a bike trailer to take the kids to nursery and then a child back tandem when one child needed to go to a special unit in a school in the neighbouring town. When my work relocated, I chose not to go, but negotiated a deal to work from an office in cycle-commute distance, thereby limiting my promotion prospects, though not too seriously. I have chosen never once in six or seven years of part-time commuting to that ten-mile-away office to duck out because of the weather. I have chosen to stick with a job that now requires more travelling to meetings, and sometimes I choose to do those by train and Brompton, but often I choose to drive so as to be home an hour earlier in the evening. When my wife re-entered the job market after maternity, she chose to limit herself to hospitals accessible by train, but if she has chosen an evening commitment on a work day, she sometimes chooses to drive instead so as to be back sooner. We have chosen to encourage our daughter in her music, which involves driving her to and from evening rehearsals and concerts, and we have chosen to teach her to use public transport at an earlier age than most of her peers so that she can progressively do more of these by train or bus. We have chosen to have some holidays without a car e.g. train to Scotland, sleeper train to Venice, and we have chosen to have rather more holidays by car. I choose my style of leisure cycling so that it doesn't involve a car (e.g. the Fridays).

Every one of those is a CHOICE! I completely agree that I have more choices than many because (a) I am relatively fit and healthy and (b) my wife and I start with the advantages of our respective professional educations which gives us more options for work. But my use of a car, which is more than Claud and Adrian's and less than the average in our peer group, is a CHOICE not a need. Oh, and I support HIGHER fuel duty and HIGHER parking charges and would be mortified if I ever picked up a parking ticket.

 

[theclaud]

OT, but just out of interest, which is the post TMN refers to in your sig, SJ?

 

[wiggydiggy]

Late Night Cycle Commutes and Public Transport

This has been mentioned a little but has got missed....

Central London has been mooted as an example of where it is possible, and almost popular, to commute at unsocial hours on a bicycle. But when I tried that (Leeds) I felt very vulnerable being (a) the only cyclist I saw and (b) a tendency for driving standards to fall. So unsocial hours cycling is not always safe for all.

Which leads to one alternative then - public transport - but unfortunately it is not viable as in many towns and cities it stops as around 2200-2300. My own city has scrapped all but 1 of its night bus and that only runs term time (for the universities).

So we're left with cars, either our own or a taxi. That can change, for instance in Leeds a call for the night bus's return is gathering strength but I think too often people perhaps are victims of taking the easy (or seen to be easy) way out of using a car.

I do feel BTW given the tone of the topic that I need to state it is not as simple as someone being either pro bike or pro car, but simply we should try to adopt a sensible attitude to our life choices whatever they may be.

 

[tyred]

Tomorrow I will be putting my bike in my car and travelling quite a few miles to meet up with some friends (who will also be reaching the destination by car) and we will be going for an enjoyable ride on scenic traffic free mountain roads before driving home again.

I am preparing the sack cloth and ashes as I type for daring to use a car to enhance my enjoyment of life.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Unless you are frail and elderly, or disabled, something I feel certain people forget whilst they are relatively young, in full health and capable of cycling 100+ miles a week without problem. Just remember, there is a good chance that the mobility you now take for granted will be gone in the future.

Oh, can really relate to that. Never sick before, a few years back I done something to my knee, suddenly needed a walking stick.
That was the only time ever in my life I felt sorry for myself
Dark thoughts of not being able to feed myself and the cat!
Hope I'm dead before something mayor happens to my mobility, no kidding, it's horrible not to be independent

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Yeah but I am

I find older bearded men of few words, set in their ways with a grumpy disposition, quite endearing.
Can I adopt you as honorary Grampa? Mind, you need to be at least 90!

 

[wiggydiggy]

Every person who decides to commute by bike makes it easier for another person to make the same decision and vice versa

True but my point was (in Leeds at least) - I tried the 'commute by bike at all times' attitude but for safety reasons had to abandon it, and the current mindset of people is not to try and consider any alternative other than to use a car rather than for example join the call for the return of late night public transport.

100's perhaps 1000's of people work in Leeds late night, not to mention everyone out enjoying the babycham or cheap lager, yet the majority not within walking distance get a taxi/private car journey home.

Here's a link BTW to current calls for more late night public transport:

"Leeds night buses ‘a non starter" http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....ies/leeds-night-buses-a-non-starter-1-4433244

In that article it says "“It is .... clear that the options and opportunities for conventional bus services are very limited commercially and difficult to justify in terms of the significant levels of public subsidy needed to achieve the level of coverage that would make a meaningful difference.”" - So people are happier to use cars to get around late night it seems.

"Late-night train call issued by Leeds councillor" http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....ain-call-issued-by-leeds-councillor-1-5569253

Its not just that line BTW my own finishes by 2330 and the only very late services I know of serve Leeds>Manchester and Leeds>York, hardly the local populace!


PS I realise that is widely off topic, but its better than arguing with each other present company accepted!

 

[400bhp]

What a middle class thread.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

True but my point was (in Leeds at least) - I tried the 'commute by bike at all times' attitude but for safety reasons had to abandon it, and the current mindset of people is not to try and consider any alternative other than to use a car rather than for example join the call for the return of late night public transport.

100's perhaps 1000's of people work in Leeds late night, not to mention everyone out enjoying the babycham or cheap lager, yet the majority not within walking distance get a taxi/private car journey home.

Here's a link BTW to current calls for more late night public transport:

"Leeds night buses ‘a non starter" http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....ies/leeds-night-buses-a-non-starter-1-4433244

In that article it says "“It is .... clear that the options and opportunities for conventional bus services are very limited commercially and difficult to justify in terms of the significant levels of public subsidy needed to achieve the level of coverage that would make a meaningful difference.”" - So people are happier to use cars to get around late night it seems.

"Late-night train call issued by Leeds councillor" http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....ain-call-issued-by-leeds-councillor-1-5569253

Its not just that line BTW my own finishes by 2330 and the only very late services I know of serve Leeds>Manchester and Leeds>York, hardly the local populace!


PS I realise that is widely off topic, but its better than arguing with each other present company accepted!

Hey, don't know about Leeds, but here in Glasgow I feel much safer cycling through the park late at night after a shift instead of taking the bus.
What a nightmare late night public transport is, used it for many years!
I mean, got headphones on, my nose in a book, still the smelly drunk pub goer wants to talk to me .... bleuchh

 

[Boris Bajic]

What a middle class thread.

Yes, but not uninteresting. Insofar as people are taking sides, they seem to be doing so in a fairly passive way; digging in rather than lobbing grenades. Much more civilised than it could be, if slightly silly at times.

I'm an avid cyclist, but I run a car (three - eek!). My reasons are much as those posted by Brandane and others. I've tried to encourage my children to ride (still naively believing that my views have any impression on those of my issue) and so far it has worked. But I also encourage them to drive at the appropriate age. They may or may not run cars when they have their own money, but it seems a sensible thing to get under their belts. Meanwhile they all have bicycles and seem to enjoy using them.

We live where we do because it is beautiful and we are happy here. When we both worked in different towns (20-ish miles in different directions) and had three young children and an au pair, cars were a blessing. We felt the need of them and I suspect that their absence would have altered our lives quite a lot.

It may be easier to keep the faith if living in a city and/or without dependents.

Within a family, it is not easy to align domestic stability, good (state) schools, work opportunity and all the sport, music and silliness of childhood with a Utopian and car-free life. I dare say some have done it, but it was not for us. I have a high regard for those who have managed it, but we have not. To do so while raising active children merits a medal or similar.

The 'car' debate is but one of many about lifestyle choices: We grow a lot of our own food here. Others might not, but that doesn't make them wrong, naughty or bad - it's just a choice. I know someone who is very anti-car but who buys supermarket apples from the other side of the world. That's not something I'd do, but I can't see it as a sin or a reason to get my soap box out. Nor do I turn down his air-mile apples when offered one - as he doesn't turn down lifts I offer.

One thing that does strike me is the extent to which living a life free of motor vehicles is always going to be fantasy at one or another level. Almost everything we eat, ride, sleep on or rake the moss with is delivered by motor vehicle.