Just sold the car

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cycleruk

Active Member
Location
Peterborough
To say there is no option but to drive implies that owning a car is a basic human right.

It isn't. Let's not go down that route of adding car ownership to the Relative Poverty equation please.

Just think about what you are saying there.

A car is never ever essential for basic human existence-sure, it is a nice thing to have, and for some it might be an easier alternative to getting around another way.

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these are both very good points:thumbsup: but i would like to add. unfortunetly someone all ready has
What i noticed when i was car free is that people in cars etc seem to think that people on pushbikes are poor, this really is not the case and i did get pissed of when people said this to me,
Nothing you, me or any one else is going to change the fact as long as humans live on this planet there will be people who do things like this.

We are very lucky in this country for you to even think in the way you do, to have the thought that a car should be a "need", not a want".

I feel this is maybe making me sound ungrateful for what i have, that i am most definitely not.
i dont consider my self lucky, i consider my self blessed. i consider my self blessed that i have a roof over my head, i consider myself blessed i have a job so i can buy things that i want not need, that i have a loving family and good health. every christmas i dont celebrate with commen things like christmas cards, christmas lights or dvd players but celebrate the true once in a life time presents.... family friends, a home, my health i pray that one day the people less beter off then me will one day be in the same postion im in (i donate to charities where i can and i even have direct debts as well) my only wish is that every one would get a long, that there are no wars etc but as long as some of the ungrateful human being sons of guns are out there, there will alway be people out there that think about the now and them selfs.

Are pushbikes, cars, van, lorrys, dvd players, computers and some many more that i would take up the hole page typing the list! critical to the human exsistance (last time i looked people were born with two legs and arms etc and not with a pushbike between there legs as the mother gave birth!)NO there not, do i consider it my right to own anything above, NO I DONT. everything in the world to day was designed to make our life easier, was design as a tool to make thinges quicker and easier for us

I respect people who are car free or not i dont put them into equations or lists because we are all human. I AM NOT PERFECT i dont do things right every time i use hindsight when the stupid idiot that i am maybe i should of used my brain at the time, i do things different that maybe is not the right way to do it but that is the kind of twat i am sometimes, i dont have a car because i think i have the right or because my life depends on it i use a car because i think that is the right thing to do at the time im doing it
 
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lulubel

lulubel

Über Member
Location
Malaga, Spain
What i noticed when i was car free is that people in cars etc seem to think that people on pushbikes are poor

While most of your post was interesting, and I respect your point of view, I just wanted to pick up on this because it bothers me that you appear to care about stupid attitudes. Why should people have to behave in a certain way just to convince others that they are "not poor"? Why should those of us who know better lower ourselves to the level of people who judge a person's value based on whether they consider them poor or not, whether they own a car or not?

It doesn't matter to me one bit if people think I'm poor. In fact, anyone who thinks I'm poor because I don't own a car, and looks down on me or pities me for that isn't worth a moment of my time.

A car is never ever essential for basic human existence-sure, it is a nice thing to have, and for some it might be an easier alternative to getting around another way.

I never really questioned - until the last couple of years - the necessity of owning a car. (I suspect this was mostly because I still enjoyed driving, and it's easy to convince yourself of the necessity of owning something that gives you pleasure. I'm heavily into computer games at the moment, and am now convinced that a high-powered gaming PC is a necessity!)

But, with the costs of running a car steadily increasing, I think more people are going to realise that owning a car is a luxury rather than a necessity, and start to question whether they really need it, or start to re-organise their lives so they can manage without it. This is pertty much what we did when we moved into town. Neither of us wanted to bother driving places, so we moved to a location where we can easily access everything we need on foot.
 

subaqua

What’s the point
Location
Leytonstone
For one I live rural, for two I like to see a lot of different places and time restrictions means the car is the quickest and most efficient way for me to do so.

Today we have just decided to pop to Doncaster, no buses running back to the village this evening prevents us getting back from the station 12 miles away. The return bus ticket would be £5 each if there was one, the train ticket £17++ each return. Fuel in car £14 park and ride in from outside the town £2.50 each. £19 against £39 a no brainer really.

I know there are other costs in running a car but my business is built around a mobile service so that carries those, of which I pay a percentage of tax on for personal use.

I also do a lot of work on buses for my customers, you would be suprised how many have major flea infestations and the smell on some of them, no thanks the cay will stay.

to be fair you are apple/oranging things a bit there. compare hiring a car or add in all the other running costs of a car. insurance VED, maintainance etc.

or look at season tickets for public transport. I grew up in N wales so understand what crap public transport is. it is dealable with though.

the 4x4 goes next weekend. i got sick of £460 VED, £900 insurance, annual maintainance costs of over £600. fuel costs i don't want to think about at 25mpg ( and thats a good average) :eek: . for all that i can get a season ticket on public transport and use the bikes as a supplement. if i need a car desperatley i can hire a decent car from a local main dealer.
 

al78

Guru
Location
Horsham
Just think about what you are saying there.

A car is never ever essential for basic human existence-sure, it is a nice thing to have, and for some it might be an easier alternative to getting around another way.

We are very lucky in this country for you to even think in the way you do, to have the thought that a car should be a "need", not a want".

You seem to have avoided the last part of what I said, which was:

"There do exist activities that some people are expected to do which would be either impractical or impossible without the use of a car."

Since motorized transport became widely available to the massed our whole systems and economy have adapted to assume this level of availability of motorized transport. It is the same with any major technological advance, once a new technology becomes available it initially provides a more convenient alternative way of doing things but gradually things change to become dependent on the new technology. That arises from either expecting people to do things faster, do things differently or do more things in a set time, using the new technology, that wouldn't be possible with the older technology.

Note also that nowhere did I say it was essential for *ME* to have a car, but it is essential for some people to have a car given how their lifestyle is at the moment, and wouldn't be possible for these people to go car free without massive changes to their life.
 
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