Do you like / love driving a motor vehicle? Vote now please!

[Cunobelin]

What about riding in a vehicle as a passenger, does anyone like or dislike that?

Depends.... some drivers I am quite happy with, there are others I will nougat in a car with

[pwa]

The last time I was in a ram packed train, with a small boy in front of me who I was trying to protect as the train slowed and accelerated, it occurred to me that there are regulations than prevent farm animals being transported in such cramped conditions.

[hondated]

Own a motorcycle, car and dare I say a VW T5 White Van and love riding and driving them all.
But particularly the van which has over 200,000 miles on the clock because you sit up that bit higher which gives you good vision.
Its also the nearest thing I can get to driving an HGV which I once did.
The only problem I have with driving the van is ensuring that I drive as courteously as I can to convince other road users that us WVD are not all the same.

[Cyril Haearn]

No. I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't useful any more. It's bizarre our society is currently configured to expect so many to do it so much. There's better things we could be doing instead of chauffeuring ourselves.

+1

A few decades ago only a few VIPs (doctor etc) had vehicles, people lived where they worked
Mind, a few people have many more bikes now than they had back then, does that go with "progress" and the grate car society?

Back then one might have had no car and one bike
Many people on this forum have a car for each adult, too many motors and too many bikes too

[pwa]

Fact is, if you have a partner and you both have places of work to get to, and those places of work change from time to time, you can no longer conveniently choose to live close to your work or even on a bus route that gets you to work easily. Cars are part of that way of living.

[CliveyT]

Just finished beer festival week where I needed to drive a van several times, having not driven anything at all since last year. After a few trepidations I quite enjoyed it, but it was mostly in the countryside and I could choose when to go so could avoid the traffic. Would still have preferred to be cycling, but maybe not when hauling 3 9-gallon casks of beer 20 odd miles.
I was also probably the bright-yellow van man studiously obeying the speed limit and giving cyclists plenty of space out on the roads

[mjr]

Fact is, if you have a partner and you both have places of work to get to, and those places of work change from time to time, you can no longer conveniently choose to live close to your work or even on a bus route that gets you to work easily. Cars are part of that way of living.

So can we change it, or are you just posting to say abandon all hope, all ye who enter Britannia?

[Cyril Haearn]

One could change jobs even more to work near home
I would bet lots of beancounters from Nottingham commute to Derby and lots more commute the other way
They should get the chance to swop
(substitute pair of towns of your choice: Cheltenham and Gloucester, Leeds and Bradford...)
It would help if driving was a bit more expensive, less attractive, the tipping point might soon be reached

[pwa]

Fact is, if you have a partner and you both have places of work to get to, and those places of work change from time to time, you can no longer conveniently choose to live close to your work or even on a bus route that gets you to work easily. Cars are part of that way of living.

So can we change it, or are you just posting to say abandon all hope, all ye who enter Britannia?

I'm saying we can change things in a way that you and I would both agree is for the better. But the future will still have vehicles that we call "cars". They will hopefully be less and less polluting and used for fewer short journeys, and alternatives like cycling and walking will hopefully be more popular for a lot of people. But for many journeys cars will still be wanted. There are lots of journeys that I can imagine people doing from my own postcode that will never be practical by public transport and only the most hardy would cycle, but which might be somebody's commute. For those journeys I'd hope better forms of car would take over.

[Vorpal]

Culture in the UK has become oriented around the car, but it doesn't have to be that way. It does require significant improvements in public transport, more flexibility in working time and home office solutions, and some other changes to make a shift, though.

Some people will never be able to work from home; nurses, GPs and medical specialists, teachers, shop employees, posties, manufacturing workers, cleaners, etc. So they need to be able to get to and from their jobs, conveniently, without drving personal cars.

We also need to find ways to incentivise people to live closer to their work. Now, people live in a rural village 30 miles from work because they can, and because housing prices are better there.

We can offset the convenience and prices factors with costs (taxes), alternatives, and inconveniences, and it will likely require some of each to accomplish change. Some of these include:

-Minimum per capita requirements for public transport services and defined hours of service
-associated subsidies for public transport (or re-nationalisation, but that's another kettle of fish)
-increased fuel taxes
-better transport options for those with special needs or disabilities (this could include better mobility equipment, community transport, specialised public transport, subsidised pedal cycles, etc.)
-deterrant taxes on company cars
-a taxation structure, for stamp duty, PAYE, and/or self-employment that encourages living near work and/or telecommuting
-improved infrastructure for active travel that is oriented towards making it more convenient, as well as safer
-incentives for employers to provide good facilities for those using active travel (changing rooms, drying rooms, secure cycle parking, etc.)

Part (much?) of the problem with the current system is that it only accounts for the money coming from individuals' pockets. The average person doesn't see the total cost of motoring because the majority comes out of general taxation. They don't see the personal cost in terms of their own health (pollution and lack of exercise). If every person had to pay the actual cost of driving (also for family or offspring), including medical care, road building, pollution and environmental effects, you can bet that most people would not drive, or would drive very little.

Millions of people would suddenly be able to get a week's shopping home without a car.

[pwa]

The reality is that most couples these days have both partners working, and their journeys to work are often in different directions. If they move home to be closer to one partner's work place they move further from the other's. And both may be changing job a year or two down the road. So moving to be closer to work isn't such an obvious solution anymore. And no parent wants to be uprooting their children every time they change job.

Personal motorised transport is here to stay. It meets a need, and most people want to keep it. So let's improve it, mitigate its worst effects and reduce dependence on it for short journeys.

Aim for something that can be achieved. If you go out and tell Mr. or Ms Average that you dream of a future without cars their eyes will glaze over and they will put you in the same pigeon hole as the folk who promote Hare Krishna. But tell them that you think they could have a better life if they used the car less and walked or cycled more, and you might see some interest.

[Vorpal]

I will offer as a specific example the community in which I live. It is a large town, within commuting distance of Oslo. Of the 8 families with children in my immediate area, 6 have one car per family, and 2 have no cars per family. 2 families are single parent families, 2 families have a stay-at-home parent, and 4 families have two working parents. Of the 6 that have one car per family, only one of those cars makes a daily commute. One person commutes daily by car. The rest, adults and children alike, use public transport and/or active travel, and some also work from home some of the time. The one person that commutes by car works for Toyota.

What does this require:
-all of the children live within 500 metres of school or nursery, except Mini V who uses bus or cycle to get to school
-there are good public transport links and they run even at unsociable hours, so that shift workers can use the bus or train
-work is also on public transport links
-good infrastructure for walking and cycling makes it easy to get to and from public transport, work, and school by walking or cycling
-reasonable cost for public transport
-higher cost for motoring

3 of the parents work within 5 miles of home, 2 (including me) work within 10 miles of home, and the rest commute more than 20 miles. Two couples go in opposite directions. The furthest apart are 20 - 25 miles in each direction; both have a slightly more than 1 hour commute, consisting of walking and train.

I know it can be achieved because I see it every day.

I'm not saying that personal transport has to go away entirely, but we won't stop environmental destruction by shifting to electric vehicles and making them more efficient. We need to *substantially* reduce our consumption of resources, and changing how we get around has to be part of that.

[pete75]

Fact is, if you have a partner and you both have places of work to get to, and those places of work change from time to time, you can no longer conveniently choose to live close to your work or even on a bus route that gets you to work easily. Cars are part of that way of living.

So can we change it, or are you just posting to say abandon all hope, all ye who enter Britannia?

Britain isn't that high up the world league table for vehicle ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita particularly in comparison with other so called advanced nations. High ownership appears more related to the wealth of a nation rather than how good it's public transport is. For example Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have much better public transport networks than the UK. All have higher vehicle ownership. All are wealthier. It seems that if people can afford to buy cars they will.

[landsurfer]

Every month i have a meeting in Inverness.
Could fly, but drive.
I take my kayak sometimes, my fishing gear another, and often my bike. In good weather i camp for the night near Perth rather than use a hotel.. in winter snow the views are amazing ... and it's only 7 hours drive each way ... positively local ...

[CliveyT]

Fact is, if you have a partner and you both have places of work to get to, and those places of work change from time to time, you can no longer conveniently choose to live close to your work or even on a bus route that gets you to work easily. Cars are part of that way of living.

So can we change it, or are you just posting to say abandon all hope, all ye who enter Britannia?

Britain isn't that high up the world league table for vehicle ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita particularly in comparison with other so called advanced nations. High ownership appears more related to the wealth of a nation rather than how good it's public transport is. For example Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have much better public transport networks than the UK. All have higher vehicle ownership. All are wealthier. It seems that if people can afford to buy cars they will.

Interesting reading, although there are some countries higher up than the UK that certainly aren't richer (Greece? Portugal?). Owership of a car doesn't necessarily mean you use it though. Most of the people I know overseas (apart from in the US, and admittedly most of them are scientists so almost certainly a biased population) own cars but commute by public transport.