Want to sell my car in order to cycle

[jgurney]

I feel stopping driving could benefit me.

Financially, I feel like I am always penny pinching with owning a car. My car insurance has been a fortune

Having no car does not faze me, as a matter of fact I actually enjoy my current 10 minute walk as part of my journey to work after getting off the bus. I live in Glasgow so there are quite a lot of cyclists

Those are very good reasons for not owning a car. You can get about without one and both your health and your wallet would benefit from getting rid of it.

I am so scared about what people will think if I sell my car

If you think about it, that does not make sense. Why should any sensible person think anything much of it? I got rid of my last one several years ago and have never felt any urge to get another.

[PH]

We need a car. Maybe a taxi would do it for us, but it's cheaper to own a car.

Often it isn't a stand alone choice, it comes with the package. You've chosen a package that makes it impractical not to have a car. I'm not criticising that, I also chose to spent 15 years living out in the sticks and given the opportunity may well do so again. But please, don't present it as if you had no choice, you don't live there for your livelihood, it's not you ancestral roots, it's what you've chosen to do. Being reliant on a car was part of that choice, your choice.
You might say it's all right for me, I can walk to the shops and live on a bus route, well yes, that was choice as well.

[Postboxer]

I think I pay Asda £5 a month for as many deliveries as I want, so rarely go to the supermarket at the moment, the car was only being used for school runs but now not doing those either. Will see how long it's battery lasts, it did ok during the first lockdown, but has already had a two week head-start over Christmas.

[DevonDamo]

Perfectly feasible for many, I agree.

Mick - question about this thread. I've got a pretty good track record of predicting which threads are going to be 'fire and forget' and I think this one's a good candidate. However, the last time I predicted it, the OP actually did return and said that the reason he hadn't returned to reply for a few days was that, as a newly registered user, he had to wait a few days for his post to be approved. Is that how this site works? If so, that might be one of the reasons we get so many users register, start a thread and then disappear into the either. Maybe it would be better to have some other spam-busting criteria to qualify you to make your first post, e.g. having made a certain number of replies to existing threads? I've seen this used on other forums and it works quite well because if the spammers try to cheat the system by making enough replies, you can usually spot them (as they look so banal or incoherent) in time to ban them.

Apologies if the OP is reading this - I don't suspect you're a spammer, but that the anti-spammer measures on this forum might be leading to a high rate of threads from genuine new-users who never actually get round to returning to their thread.

[prestavalve]

Lived car free all my life, which was mostly spent working overseas.

Now I am back in the UK I find myself calculating the cost of taking the train when it is too icy to ride. Trains are too expensive.

[Tigerbiten]

Do I own a car - Yes.
Do I drive the car - Not very often.
Do I need a car - Not really.

I've half-a-doz supermarkets within a 10 mile radius of home.
So it's a fairly easy cycle to one and back a couple of times a week for my shopping.
I've also a bike trailer if I need to pick up something big.
The main use for my car is to do a longer journey than I can easily cycle in a day, which is mainly to visit family.
But as I don't like driving anymore I'll do it only once or twice a year.
Plus it gives me somewhere to store my recumbent trike that's out of the weather.

Luck ........

[RickH]

Lived car free all my life, which was mostly spent working overseas.

Now I am back in the UK I find myself calculating the cost of taking the train when it is too icy to ride. Trains are too expensive.

There's always the option of studded tyres!

They tend to be a bit slower & /or harder work but are effective for staying upright.

I'm currently running a pair of Schwalbe Snow Studs which I picked up for under £30 for the pair around 4 years ago (you can sometimes get some good bargains in the spring ). I've also used their Marathon Winters in the past (only change of wheel size, 26" to 700C, necessitated new tyres).

[Oldjohnw]

People don't remain under 70 for ever. Eventually, if you're lucky, you get old which might mean you can't do shopping, appointments and all the other stuff of life, in all weathers by bike. Public transport in many rural locations is abysmal.

Cars have their uses.

[gbnz]

People don't remain under 70 for ever. Eventually, if you're lucky, you get old which might mean you can't do shopping, appointments and all the other stuff of life, in all weathers by bike. Public transport in many rural locations is abysmal..

Yes, but dosn't the USA's new president get limousines and all that?

[Oldjohnw]

People don't remain under 70 for ever. Eventually, if you're lucky, you get old which might mean you can't do shopping, appointments and all the other stuff of life, in all weathers by bike. Public transport in many rural locations is abysmal..

Yes, but dosn't the USA's new president get limousines and all that?

Yes. Another old man. Unfortunately, i don't get a limo.

[horizon]

For us, personally, we cannot do shopping via walking, cycling or public transport.

Nor us, or by car.

95% of our food arrives delivered and left outside the back door. The few inches of distance is in fact impossible to traverse by any means other than reaching down with one's arms and picking it up. Sometimes it is even delivered into our arms by the person delivering it.

We don't have a regular supermarket delivery (they are pretty useless IMV, even Waitrose). The real magic comes courtesy of Riverford: vegetables fresh from the fields, eggs from chickens with their feathers intact, milk from happy cows, organic bread (when we are not making our own), fruit from farms where the workers aren't sprayed with toxins. We buy other stuff direct: Pimhill porridge oats, Shipton Mill flour, shampoo from Faith in Nature. Amazon supplies the tea and washing up liquid.

And yes, it all comes to the back door. Delivery is entirely free.

I never go into supermarkets except to recycle the plastic bags (I went to Morrisons today by bike and train to do that). In fact I never go shopping and Mrs H only rarely. And we live in a small settlement.

There are lots of reasons not to get everything delivered. And there are good reasons to go into shops. But there is no actual need to go shopping IMV.

[iandusud]

We need a car. Maybe a taxi would do it for us, but it's cheaper to own a car.

I don't doubt that for you in your situation that is the case. For us I calculated the cost of running our car at around £1000 P.A. not including fuel, i.e. the cost of owning it before using it. That is based on insurance (based on age 61 with full no claims bonus), VED, maintenance and MOT costs and minimal depreciation (I liked to run old cars). That works out at £80/month, which would pay for quite a lot of taxis and car hire through the year. To date after 3 months without a car we haven't used a taxi or hired a car. Our car ownership costs were very low. For most people who prefer to run a more recent car the depreciation alone could easily be double our total annual running costs. So the real cost of car ownership is often much higher than many people think. I have expressed this to my grown up children when they have talked about getting a car and pointed out that a car would probably cost them at least £2k/annum if they're prepared to take the risk of running an old car and could easily be double that. When presented to them as a monthly cost of £160-£320/month they're happier to stick to cycling, public transport and taxis. I have one son who needed a car to get to and from his work, and he was lucky to get a cheap s/h car that is good one, but it was costing him £1200/annum for insurance for a young driver plus all the other running costs.

[Rmr25]

I have been carless now for 11 years and walk,cycle and use public transport if needed. Every now and again I have used a friends car, I am on the insurance policy, to travel to remote areas. I have found the experience to be unpleasant because of the amount of traffic and the impatience of some drivers. Public transport around my county, Notts and into Derbyshire is very good so I'm lucky. Look at the alternatives around your area and then make your decision.

[francovendee]

No one should care what others think of you selling your car or buying another. It's your choice.
As Mick said for some it's not, or extremely difficult to manage without a car. We can't, although we shop by bike when we can.

Everyone's situation is different and those that mange to be car free must realise it's not practical for others.

[Mick F]

We need a car. Maybe a taxi would do it for us, but it's cheaper to own a car.

Often it isn't a stand alone choice, it comes with the package. You've chosen a package that makes it impractical not to have a car. I'm not criticising that, I also chose to spent 15 years living out in the sticks and given the opportunity may well do so again. But please, don't present it as if you had no choice, you don't live there for your livelihood, it's not you ancestral roots, it's what you've chosen to do. Being reliant on a car was part of that choice, your choice.
You might say it's all right for me, I can walk to the shops and live on a bus route, well yes, that was choice as well.

Yes, it's our choice to live in a beautiful valley.

It wasn't our choice to have a pandemic either.

Up until a couple of years ago, I was a volunteer driver for the local community bus. With a bus pass, routine passengers travelled free, and the bus would pick you up from your door and take you to the shops, and then deliver you back home. It was a very popular service, and one me and Mrs Mick F have used ............... in the past.

The service has ceased now due to the pandemic. What the vulnerable and the elderly are doing now for shopping, I don't know.

It's been mentioned about getting deliveries, so no doubt that's what folk are doing now. Trouble is, that leads to isolation and utter boredom, as going shopping on the community bus was the highlight of the week for some of them, not just the visit to the shops, but the camaraderie and chats during the journey.

Even us, in the car, get out to places. We have to use social distancing of course, but it's still a sort of social life. Staying at home and getting deliveries instead is boredom. At least we can get out and walk the dog, and even drive somewhere to walk the dog. Some people aren't so lucky.

We need a car. Maybe a taxi would do it for us, but it's cheaper to own a car.

I don't doubt that for you in your situation that is the case. For us I calculated the cost of running our car at around £1000 P.A. not including fuel, i.e. the cost of owning it before using it.

Not including fuel, for us is half that. That includes Toyota servicing and MOTs.