Going carless?

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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

More wisdom and queer humour from mm :wink:

Plenty of people can easily do without a vehicle, retiring is a good time to reorganise ones life, maybe move to a suitable place with food stores nearby, doctor, chemist, train station. Not driving is great for all sorts of reasons
..
Plenty could do as I have done, not discovered a downside yet

To save the naysayers trouble, I note that some could not :wink:
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Syd
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Going carless?

Post by Syd »

merseymouth wrote:Oh Dear me Syd, When a cyclist falls into the old "Road Fund Licence" trap it may lead others to think they are going gaga?
Cast your mind back to 1937, that was when Winston Spencer Churchill abolished such a levy, the first and probably the last time a politician utter the truth, in that instance the the money was not ring fenced for that purpose!
Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) is what replaced it, which is still what is levied today.

I’m completely disinterested about what it is named. Those that want to jump up and down about it are welcome to waste their energy.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

The thing is, it is not hypothecated, it goes into the giant pot of taxes :?
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Syd
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Syd »

Just for clarity retirement for me is still a number of years away [emoji57]
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Syd wrote:Just for clarity retirement for me is still a number of years away

Might be worth thinking about it now. I started thinking a bit late, hardly had a plan, then I realised that I had been planning & preparing for 30 years without knowing it
It is a deal better than working :wink:
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thirdcrank
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Re: Going carless?

Post by thirdcrank »

I've never been without four wheels since I could afford a purchase-tax-free van.

A combination of things such as cycling, free bus travel courtesy of Woy, and a carefully chosen house location enabled me to minimise personal driving, although I was often in a car at work.

The biggest problems are to do with the way our society is increasingly arranged on the assumption that everybody has a car. I believe you work in the NHS and they are among the worst, IME. Other areas may be different. eg Various services which were previously centralised at Jimmy's or the LGI have been moved out into "the community" but only to places where parking, especially for staff is easier. Those of whose surnames begin in A are often advantaged by heading the queue, but getting the first - fixed - appointment at 0830 is no help if you need to travel to collect somebody to take them to an appointment at some distance, especially with several changes of bus.
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horizon
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Re: Going carless?

Post by horizon »

thirdcrank wrote:
The biggest problems are to do with the way our society is increasingly arranged on the assumption that everybody has a car.


+ 1 And willing to drive it of course.

What is worse perhaps is that people are generally IMV completely unaware of this assumption. I love the quaint few seconds silence while they re-calibrate their minds and take into account the fact that you won't be arriving by car.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
Mike Sales
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Mike Sales »

thirdcrank wrote:
The biggest problems are to do with the way our society is increasingly arranged on the assumption that everybody has a car. I believe you work in the NHS and they are among the worst, IME. Other areas may be different. eg Various services which were previously centralised at Jimmy's or the LGI have been moved out into "the community" but only to places where parking, especially for staff is easier. Those of whose surnames begin in A are often advantaged by heading the queue, but getting the first - fixed - appointment at 0830 is no help if you need to travel to collect somebody to take them to an appointment at some distance, especially with several changes of bus.


Ain't this the truth.
I have never had a car, but fortuitously I can still make my necessary trips by bus or on my crutches.
A small Coop supermarket has opened in the village a couple of hundred yards away, but the surgery has moved from the centre of the village to half a mile away on the edge, of course with a car park.
The bus service is still good enough to take me into town, but the retail sheds are now out of town, as in so many places, and so rather more difficult to reach.
The hospital is two bus rides away, (out of town too) and I often have to ask for my appointments to be changed to an accessible time.
The assumption that everyone has a car increases the problems of those without, which is also a problem for everybody in that more and more car travel also increases congestion for motorists (and deliveries!).
I also find it annoying when similes derived from this assumption are used to explain things.
I once began a course intended to qualify me for the European Computer Driving Licence!
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Syd
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Syd »

As TC has pointed out, yes, I do work for the NHS (in Scotland).

Things have changed, not only this year, and travel, especially for meetings, had already begun to diminish. This is, almost certainly, a trend that will continue.

I travel to my main site by bike. Should the weather become bad enough to make that impossible I have two options.

1. Work from home
2. Walk to the nearest hospital to my home and set up a temporary base there.

The second option was implemented during the Beast from the East and my counterpart, whose ‘area’ I set a temporary base in, walked to my usual site (closest to his home) and set up a base from there.

I also have the option of using a pool vehicle for work if necessary.

This all adds into the current analysis.
Debs
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Debs »

Back in the 1980s, when i was a brighter shade of green, environmentalists often pointed out that society was becoming far too car cultured, and quality of life would be much improved if intelligent ecological social engineering could begin to address this situation, albeit a project that would probably take a few decade to put things right, after all it was then an evolving situation that had escalated since the end of WW2 over three decades earlier. Unfortunately over the four decades that has followed not only has nothing much been done to improve sustainable and healthy living, but much has been done to continually promote more and more car ownership, the profit making construction of thousands of pokey little wendy houses far away from amenities and places of work, and always the big supermarkets with large free car parking.

I don't know what the answer is now, it would seem modern life blunders on regardless.
But with a need to build more homes it would be interesting to build new Eco-towns that are designed to have no personal car ownership at all, amenities close by - or delivered to door, trams and other public transport that's free to jump on and off.
Jdsk
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Jdsk »

Debs wrote:I don't know what the answer is now...

But with a need to build more homes it would be interesting to build new Eco-towns that are designed to have no personal car ownership at all, amenities close by - or delivered to door, trams and other public transport that's free to jump on and off.

I'd include:
1 A national integrated transport strategy.
2 Updating of transport taxes.
3 And doing it much better in new towns, just as you suggest. If we *believe the Government we're about to see a lot of these...

Jonathan

* Possibly the biggest conditional in the world.
Jdsk
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Jdsk »

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Mick F
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Mick F »

986 trips in a year?
We own a car, and have done since I passed my test in 1971.
Never used a car three times a day! :shock:
Mick F. Cornwall
merseymouth
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Re: Going carless?

Post by merseymouth »

Hi again, The system is now so heavily weighted towards the assumption of universal car ownership/use, far worse than back when I was a nipper.
My own SWMBO was a native of Rhyl, written all the wat through like a stick of rock.
Back there even a small place such as that had two hospitals, then the big plan was implemented - a mega hospital way out of town. Public Transport? To quote John P McEnroe "You cannot be serious"! Car essential but in the holiday months a helicopter would be a better choice.
Repeat that in Cumbria where our daughter lives then it is even worse. A chum of mine who lives in Ulverston had to come to Liverpool for treatment! That entails an overnight stay for the clinic?
We don't have a car, which means car hire happens, which often means sitting for an hour reading the owners manual to understand the function which vary from model to model in a range and make by make! I book one type of vehicle then get lumbered with a new horror, the last new vehicle had a serious defect, an danger!
So car-centric sums up the mess we have to cope with. Stupid set-up. IGICB MM
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Going carless?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Right there mm, one books a small vehicle and gets upgraded for free to a bigger one that uses more fuel, minusminus
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
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