Ageing and living without a car

[Bmblbzzz]

I urge any urbanite not to move to the country because doing so artificially distorts the rural housing market and makes it unaffordable for local folk and especially the young trying to get started on the housing ladder, to buy. There are villages in Wales where many houses are empty for most of the year; they are holiday cottages occupied for maybe one month in twelve. Rural communities are being destroyed as a result. Many incomers have scant regard for local tradition,in my experience. To cite just one example, I have heard a Black Country friend complain that the Welsh are "rude and inconsiderate" because they speak Welsh in their local shops and cannot be understood!

I'd say that holiday cottages should be considered more like Airbnbs and the like than homes, whether they're in the countryside or a city centre.

As for people moving from urban to rural areas to live, it's going to depend on local factors to some extent; globally we are living in an era of rural depopulation, especially noticeable in Southern Europe where some villages are selling houses for €100 in order to get people to just live there. UK doesn't have it so extreme but the drift to cities for jobs, facilities, etc, tends to outweigh the drift to the country for peace and beauty, etc.

[axel_knutt]

When I was contemplating moving for health reasons about 12 years ago I though I might combine it with a move elsewhere as well, and had a hankering to go to York. The immediate need didn't materialise as I thought it might, but when I was looking I found that my list of requirements were mutually exclusive mostly:

Ground floor: That rules out houses.
No leasehold: That rules out flats.
Within walking distance of the city centre: That rules out bungalows.
Not in flood zone: That rules out most of the city centre.
Not dependent on bus services that might get cancelled on a whim: That rules out satellites on the edge of town.

On reflection, I think the last of those could have gone. Acomb is quite a nice little town with good bus services into the city centre, and good amenities of its own. And plenty of bungalows.

[cc1085]

There must be at least seven thousand million people in the world living without a car, so I think it must be possible .

[Carlton green]

There must be at least seven thousand million people in the world living without a car, so I think it must be possible .

Considering just the UK 22% of households don’t have a car, that’s a big chunk of people who are demonstrating that having their own car isn’t essential. Of course, depending on your circumstances, being without transport can be painfully challenging - been there, got the tea shirt, and hope never to return.

The proportion of households without a car fell from 48% in 1971 (based on the Census) to 22% in 2024.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... %20England.

[axel_knutt]

22% of households don’t have a car

And of the 78% that do, there are three cars for every two households.

[Carlton green]

22% of households don’t have a car

And of the 78% that do, there are three cars for every two households.

True, but the report I referenced also showed that journey numbers and mileages are dropping. Many cars are increasingly sitting unused and eventually more of us will simply get about by different means. Personally I’ve been minded to replace my old car with a BEV, but increasingly I wonder whether to wait until it eventually dies and then to see whether we actually need to replace it or not.

Overall, there has been a gradual decline in car driver and passenger trips since 2002.
For average miles travelled by car, the trend since 2002 was similar to that for trips.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... %20England

[eileithyia]

My neighbours in the 80s had no car, bus into town for shopping and taxi home. I think we get very wrapped up in the convenience of our cars and losing their use is like a 'death' for some it's particularly difficult to see outside of the box.

We have one smallish and expensive supermarket in the Town in which I live and I’ve not come across a Taxi company here to get me roughly a mile home from it. My nearest decent Supermarket is some eight or more miles away along roads that I wouldn’t dare to cycle on. Fortunately there’s a bus but it takes an age to cover that distance and doesn’t run frequently, a Taxi home from the big supermarket would be rather expensive. I guess my best options are either home delivery or to put up with what’s available locally and then shift it home with a trailer or shopping trolley.

As ever YMMV and situations vary.

I find my car a great liberator and am thankful to be (as far as I know) in good health. An older pal lives further out in the countryside and has Parkinson’s disease, his Mrs isn’t so well either; the nearest bus route is a mile’s walk away so they’re dependant on a car. Mostly ‘one’ never thinks of one’s old age and how we’ll live once the mobility we take for granted is taken from us; people contributing to this thread are exceptions to that seemingly near universal mindset.

I guess we see from different perspectives. I was brought up in a city so regular buses was part of my life. Admittedly not all bus journeys were of any use or every journey was easily completed by bus. Once I became a cyclist I never considered using the bus even for some fairly hefty bits of shopping. Moving up north for a time I was in a fairly rural setting be it on the edge of a town... nearest bus being almost a mile away. With a learning disabled son I moved down into the town where we have 2 excellent bus services and he can walk to the train station so he wasn't too isolated.
I guess my cycling experiences (riding with a variety of other cyclists) over the years has taught me that no matter how fit we are there's stuff that can be lurking to bite us. I've seen quite a few of my older colleagues knocked off their perch due to stroke, parkinson's, alzheimer's, arthritis, age, etc that have meant they have had to give up their car, that given me enough cause to be thankful I live somewhere where we have a public transport which seems to be improving recently.

I do find it interesting the comparison of taxi prices, but note you still have a car..... we used to have this conversation with a relative who 'needed' his car for shopping and was doing less than 2,000 miles a year, that by the time he deducted insurance, service, MOT, new tyres (he was always damaging them ) then a taxi home with shopping would not be any more expensive.

[Carlton green]

I guess we see from different perspectives. I was brought up in a city so regular buses was part of my life. Admittedly not all bus journeys were of any use or every journey was easily completed by bus. Once I became a cyclist I never considered using the bus even for some fairly hefty bits of shopping. Moving up north for a time I was in a fairly rural setting be it on the edge of a town... nearest bus being almost a mile away. With a learning disabled son I moved down into the town where we have 2 excellent bus services and he can walk to the train station so he wasn't too isolated.
I guess my cycling experiences (riding with a variety of other cyclists) over the years has taught me that no matter how fit we are there's stuff that can be lurking to bite us. I've seen quite a few of my older colleagues knocked off their perch due to stroke, parkinson's, alzheimer's, arthritis, age, etc that have meant they have had to give up their car, that given me enough cause to be thankful I live somewhere where we have a public transport which seems to be improving recently.

I do find it interesting the comparison of taxi prices, but note you still have a car..... we used to have this conversation with a relative who 'needed' his car for shopping and was doing less than 2,000 miles a year, that by the time he deducted insurance, service, MOT, new tyres (he was always damaging them ) then a taxi home with shopping would not be any more expensive.

It sounds like you have quite a bit of experience of seeing how YMMV works and the diversity of what happens to folk in life. Certainly good health isn’t guaranteed, even to those who have been virtuous and cycled ‘everywhere’. Then there are the unplanned challenges of family life and employment which can turn life upside down.

To my mind the best that we can do is attempt to plan ahead but that’s hard. A friend’s husband was well last year but is now in hospital on his deathbed, another friend’s son was recently rushed into hospital and it could have been a case of his wife and their children loosing a loved husband and father. Stuff happens out of the blue.

The community I live in doesn’t support a Taxi company. Most of my driving is to enjoy a couple of hobbies that require me to travel and public transport (from here) just wouldn’t allow me to pursue them, I’m resigned to having to give up some things once I can not longer drive. That’s life and we have to roll with it or be crushed by it - easier said than done.

Thinking ahead seems to be the best we can do, and observing one’s older friends and their difficulties is perhaps one of life’s better guides. Then it’s a case of having a flexible mindset and seeing how to make what you’ve got work for you. We don’t always get what we want and we’re not always in charge of what happens to us, but we can attempt to manage (for ‘the best’) how we react to it all,

[axel_knutt]

I've commented previously about how society has been organised around the car for a century, and subject to a myriad of largely opaque subsidies, and how people take it all for granted. I thought about it again when someone came on here wanting to know where they could park for a fortnight on the street for free near Harwich.

[Nearholmer]

Less than a century.

The real Triumph Of The Car didn’t come until the 1960s and 1970s. The boundary was crossed c1970, which was the first time half of households had access to a car.

It’s remarkable how car ownership and use has transformed the UK in such a short period, upending the physical and mental geography of the nation.

[grufty]

Less than a century.

The real Triumph Of The Car didn’t come until the 1960s and 1970s. The boundary was crossed c1970, which was the first time half of households had access to a car.

It’s remarkable how car ownership and use has transformed the UK in such a short period, upending the physical and mental geography of the nation.

Very nicely put.

It is indeed remarkable how many of us can remember car ownership as being an anomaly. Now it is seen as an absolute right and necessity, and has become completely normalised in younger generations.

[Carlton green]

The real Triumph Of The Car didn’t come until the 1960s and 1970s. The boundary was crossed c1970, which was the first time half of households had access to a car.

It’s remarkable how car ownership and use has transformed the UK in such a short period, upending the physical and mental geography of the nation.

Those things are true and rightly something to lament about, but - and respectfully - the several recent posts on that societal change don’t give the OP - and others of similar situations - any practical help in their present situation. Perhaps the thread is running out of steam and all avenues of practical discussion have been exhausted. I do hope that that’s not the case as some of the practical ideas were new to me and others prompted me to look again at things I’d previously wondered about.

Planning for older age is important, but gathering information first (as a part of preparing to plan) and then continuing to gather it (as plans are formed and then subsequently reviewed) is even more important. Without some useful idea of what to expect and how to manage things it’s very easy to do stuff that you’ll later regret.

The path ahead of us all is well trodden, perhaps it’s mapped too, sometimes I wonder if there aren’t resources we’re overlooking. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-ad ... ng-better/

[Bmblbzzz]

The increase in car ownership, from 52% to 78% of households between 1971 and 2021 according to stats upthread, does not seem to account for all of the increase in vehicle numbers. In other words, the number of multi-car households has increased faster than the number of no-car households has decreased. Another aspect of a polarising world.

[rareposter]

Some really good points made in several posts above. This one rang very true for me, it relates to the story of my grandfather which is a few posts back (previous page somewhere).

I do find it interesting the comparison of taxi prices, but note you still have a car..... we used to have this conversation with a relative who 'needed' his car for shopping and was doing less than 2,000 miles a year, that by the time he deducted insurance, service, MOT, new tyres (he was always damaging them ) then a taxi home with shopping would not be any more expensive.

That ^^ was what did it for my grandpa too. He basically got priced off the road due to the sheer number of low-level bumps, scrapes and knocks he was having. Other cars in supermarket car parks, walls and fences when he parked up... He simply wasn't fit to drive but having that conversation with him was very difficult.

And having that sort of conversation now (or recognising it in ourselves) is even more problematic for the reasons that these two comments very accurately describe:

It is indeed remarkable how many of us can remember car ownership as being an anomaly. Now it is seen as an absolute right and necessity, and has become completely normalised in younger generations.

I've commented previously about how society has been organised around the car for a century, and subject to a myriad of largely opaque subsidies, and how people take it all for granted.

Having a car is expected, it is normal and proper, real people have cars. Try having a conversation with work colleagues and tell them you don't own a car. You'll usually be met with looks of incredulity, questions as to how you can possibly cope like that, maybe even pity or sympathy.
You can take it one step further by saying how you go to the shops on your e-cargo bike, watch their jaws hit the floor.

As Carlton says, planning ahead is critical, an acceptance that things WILL change. It could be tomorrow if (God forbid), you had an accident or health scare, it could b over the next 30 years but at some point people need to consider their back-up plan - where they'll move to when the 4-bed detached house becomes far too expensive and awkward to keep and to live in and to access amenities from, what they'll do when they can no longer drive or walk or cycle... But they're not exactly nice thoughts to have and plan for...

In most cases I think the gradual decline in physical and cognitive ability dulls that sense of self-awareness and it increasingly becomes the role of friends and relatives to try and address it.

[al_yrpal]

According to BBC You and Yours today a quarter of homeowners over 55 said their home was not suitable for their needs as they age. And, only 1% of new homes being built are bungalows.

My 'new' car is from 2012. I looked at the online forum for that model and it is full of people with much later models bitterly complaining about faults with all the various electronic thingys that have either failed or dont work.

Answer is... Dont buy a modern car...

Al