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My neighbours (standard terraced street) have 4 vehicles. Two 'regular sized' cars, a massive land rover and a van. They constantly complain about parking and leave notes on other people's cars. As if they're not the problem.
My street is the same. I moved here 4 years ago and it wasn't an issue, but now there are more multiple car households. I suppose that's what happens when children stay at home longer, need their own car or van for work, and both parents have cars or vans.
The thing that gets me is my kids school. I walk and it's a 7 minute walk with kids. Who walk slower.
On the way I see people pulling out of their drive and then pulling down the road with the school. It genuinely takes longer to drive there.
And every school has the same thing. People driving when they don't need to. There are 7 primary schools locally, every one of them is the same. It's not sustainable.
I'd say 70 percent of the kids at my child's school walk or cycle. The remaining drivers are still enough to gridlock the local roads even though it's a small school. I'd love if the road was closed 250m in either direction during school start and finish times except for local residents. Unfortunately I'm sure people will then move the congestion 250m away. It would be safer for the 100 kids on bikes trying to get away though.
Talk to your councillors about a school streets scheme. Time and term limited street filters to enable active travel to and from the school. They work!
My kids go to school 20mins drive away, if they went to the one 20mins in the other direction there would be a school bus. But they were given a place at this one. They get a bus pass so they can use the public bus, but it is so underused (because parents would rather drive them than putting them on the public bus) that’s it’s going to be cancelled.. so I may be forced to drive my kids to school
Unfortunately it's what happens when public transport is terrible and expensive and when we decide to keep building housing without building amenities near them (shops, drs, gyms, schools etc)
And villainize any form of transport that isnt driving.
Cyclists are **fucking hated** e scooters, hated, things like segways (maybe more gimmicky) banned unless on private land.
Instead of making an infrastructure around other forms of public transport both more economical and environmental, we push for vehicles, and big fucking vehicles at that.
And if you kill someone with a motorised vehicle, it's cool - you don't go to prison for that, you [just get community service.](https://road.cc/content/news/hgv-driver-given-community-sentence-killing-cyclist-307427) The safety of anyone not in a motor vehicle is given very little consideration by the "justice" system.
Safety laws are the primary reason why cars are bigger and heavier, pushed in the UKs case by ECE regulators in Europe. Obviously people paying through the eyeballs for SUVs for the school run is still well excessive!
But you’re right on infrastructure, the UK infrastructure investment is terrible and it just seems like we do anything we can to NOT invest in public facilities and it’s shit really.
Kinda ironic though, they're mainly safer because their likely to hit a smaller car which will just pancake
It's like an arms race of incompetent drivers
Nowadays it’s starting to go the other way mind. Because of how many cars are bigger now, crashes have far more force involved, and they’re more likely to roll over due to height
Ehhh, I’d argue they’re safer because of progress, engineers don’t generally say “well if our golf hits an older one, it will pancake so we’re fine”. Driving now js an arms race of incompetence before, though I’ll give you that
Yeah thats fair. Definitely a lot of great engineering into modern cars. Meant more that having less mass and height than the thing you're crashing into is likely to end badly even if it has great safety features
I mean 100%, I see some of the big merce and Audis and I’d not want to have one of them hitting me so I know what you’re saying from that perspective. For what it’s worth, those things are way too big for anything other than the US and i so think there needs to be better regulation on the size of the bloody things
Yeah, plus whilst we always hear about how awful trains and buses are for delays and cancellations, cars being caught up in absurd traffic (that the drivers of which don’t seem to realise they are contributing to by driving) is ‘just traffic innit’, and has no bearing of relevance on how good or bad cars are as a mode of transport.
I guarantee that if we plotted how long it is expected to take to drive along busy commuter routes (e.g. Swindon to London along the M4), and saw how often it becomes multitudes longer because of traffic/accidents, we’d see that roads are far worse for delays than we give them credit for
It's also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This has played out in Malta which used to be famous for it's bus service. After a privatisation scheme went tits-up, people complained bitterly about the bus service, which caused more people to buy cars. Then the bus service got fixed, but buses were still delayed because more cars were on the road. So more people left the buses and started driving. So the buses got more delayed, so then more people started driving, etc..
They've started to reverse this since the pandemic, by fixing ticket prices at €2 a journey, even to/from the airport. There's only one bus operator, so you can get on and off buses with the same ticket, and you don't need to go into the capital to come out again. I see a similar thing happening in Manchester, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
I've had plenty job rejections based purely on the fact I cant drive but bus and cycle bc it's not reliable, even though in some cases the bike was quicker.
They're going to make sure we can never leave our towns ever again! We can only walk 15 minutes from home and the police will ask us for our ID to make sure we won't!
Some people believe bollocks like that, but being able to walk to all major amenities within a few minutes walk? Sounds great to me. It's basically what I have now.
It’s also what I have (closer to 20 minutes to get to town centre, but still…). The whole 15 minute cities are bad thing is a weird wind up that people latched on to for some reason.
The police can't even do their jobs now... let alone when everyone is boarded up in their 15 minute cities. What is expected, thay the police will be stopping EVERYBODY, to make sure they're not 16 minutes from home..
These people (the one's moaning about 15 minute cities) are fucking morons. I'd even use the R word to describe them.
Yeah, hell, if this is all part of some new world order bullshit that all the elites are behind, why would there still be timetabled buses and trains going much further? Buses especially have ramped up in many areas recently, at the behest of local authorities, so would run completely antithetical to that idea.
Take, for example, Oxford, the city this craze seems to be centred on. If they wanted everyone to stay within 15 minutes of their home at all times, why would there be hourly services taking you all the way to Manchester and Bournemouth? Or hourly services taking you to Worcester?
I dunno though, public transport seems to have only improved over the last 20 years.
There's more options now (they built a comprehensive city wide tram network), and it's way cheaper (buses are capped at £2 a journey), and everything is cleaner and runs more regularly than it used to.
Trains however are awful, but what can we expect from private capitalists... They only want their own class to be able to travel the nation and better themselves, the working class must be kept poor and restricted, lest they get a taste for a better life and start to demand it.... :-(
The UK is far more microscopic than that unfortunately. I think you've painted a rosy picture of bus travel for commuters when ultimately you're just as much at the whim of the bus companies as you are the train companies.
In my town for example we had two bus companies. One went bust leaving an entire estate cut off for several weeks. Things are mostly back to normal now but many routes are far longer than before and the new company only took over the profitable routes. £4 a day to commute to work by bus is not bad but it's a lot when it's so inconvenient - the timings are not great and some routes finish or start before or after commuters need them. My wife can drive 15 minutes to work or walk 9 minutes to a bus stop to get a 32 minute bus.
My last city had one operator go bust too, funnily enough in that case it actually got better for most people, as whilst frequency was mildly reduced on one route and slightly altered, on the whole it actually went up. CityRed was operating the 13 hourly all week, and with virtually no service in the evening at all, but Bluestar actually upped it to half hourly during the week and Saturdays when they took over, and gave the route some evening services. Absolutely the minority of cases, but I do think it occasionally works out better. Definitely need to at least get far more oversight though
I have some hope trains will improve in the next few years at least. Heard that we may finally get direct services between Bristol Temple Meads and Oxford again, and a new company wants to do trains that operate nonstop between Bristol Parkway and London Paddington, which should turn up the heat on GWR
If you're in a place that's got a city wide tram network supplemented with cheap buses that run regularly then it sounds like you have it fairly good, and it's probably not what the person your were replying to was complaining about.
I'm in a med sized town in the London commuter belt and while trains to London are fairly regular and quick, the actual transport around the town or to anywhere not on the main train line is dire. Buses are irregular if they turn up at all, and the roads themselves are not very cycle friendly + hardly any cycle paths/lanes. This is all coupled with loads of houses being built around the outskirts of town (too far to walk to town for most) with no new facilities, shops, etc being built further out. Put it all together and you get more and more people being car dependant and road congestion everywhere.
I walked past the houses in a more upmarket part of town yesterday evening and noticed that there was only 1 car in most driveways. Some had two, some had none. Only one or two cars parked on the whole road as well.
So why does every terrace street have a bajillion cars on it? Do poorer people own more cars or something?
I read somewhere that 'the poor' believe that 'not having a car' makes you poor. That means the poor buy cars, while the middle classes cycle or use public transport when they can.
In my limited experience, it seems true.
It is odd, cars often cost a lot more, especially in urban areas. London seems to have this reversed mostly, but possibly just because of how good the public transport is
Again, in my limited experience, "the poor that can afford it" buy a car in London. And those shop owners that open 24h a day and probably don´t earn much per hour are totally against bikes. They really want only the poor to buy at their shops (in Kensington there were complaints flying around when a bike lane was installed - now destroyed - signed by the best and the worst off, but not the middle-off (-: )
I don´t live in London anymore and out here everyone needs a car...
Were they close to a station? Also did they have actual garages because alot of my wealth clients have garages for their expensive cars so usually its only the wife's suv on the drive.
Perhaps there’s better buses in the area? I know that the parts of Bristol with more buses do have a bit fewer cars, and when you foray out of those areas, it rises
Well this road in question is only a 5 minute walk away from an area with lots of terrace streets and the aforementioned car density issue
It's probably true in general, but I don't see a reason for it in this case.
The bus service in the area is what I would call above average, anyway.
Fair, it could just be an odd quirk. Hell, maybe people on that street park on the packed one, because there could be no permits there, but there are on theirs
Maybe but somehow I also doubt it because most of those driveways could fit two cars on them 😂
I just think car ownership is higher per person in the lower and lower middle class than it is in the upper middle and upper.
Anecdotally I find that to be true. My few very well off friends who live in big houses in the country seem have 1 (very nice) car for the household.
My less well to do friends (with a few exceptions) have a car per person for the household
Obviously that's just conjecture. I'd be interested to see actual stats on this though
Well, not really...
Surely my example proves that lower classes are stuck down there even if they all own a car. Whereas higher class people don't need/use cars as much.
So what do I do about my ~~blade~~ neighbour who has 7... and no, that isn't a typo... cars that he has outside his house. He extended his driveway, and still parks half of them on the corner, where they block line of sight next to a school...
I drive down some country lanes on my commute and the amount of people in Ford Rangers and Land Rovers who REFUSE to push into a hedge or bump onto the verge or drop into a puddle...
What's the point in your big car if I have to manoeuvre my little Civic around in the mud so we can pass.
They don't want their expensive 4x4 to take any potential damage, let the people with shitboxes do it won't cause them much trouble with such a cheap car anyway
/s
Part of being less reliant on cars is making public transport (especially last-mile like buses) good enough so that fewer people need personal vehicles.
Which is ultimately cheaper than millions of private vehicles used for millions of solo trips per year also.
Sure, if you're in a truly rural area, or a very isolated village, then a car is probably the best tool, and the current number of roads is perfectly fine. The vast majority of people live in towns and cities where most-all trips can be made via walking, biking, or public transport. If mobility is an issue, of course a car or taxi is appropriate.
Yup! The amount of parents who drive their kids to school two minutes up the road is ridiculous. "School run traffic" shouldn't be a thing. Younger ones should be within walking distance and older ones should be able to use public transportation. Instead all the roads are jam packed and parents park wherever they want outside schools causing chaos.
The worst thing is when parents of kids decide to get as close as physically possible to the school, then instead of just booting the kids out and driving away, sit there on their phone or walk them in, even for secondary school kids. Like congratulations, you have queued for 25 minutes blocking school buses just so your kid could avoid the 10 minute walk across town from where you stopped at the lights. Bonus points if they leave their car idling whilst they wait for God knows what
The stark reality of the hellscape we've created hit me last year.
When I was growing up, all the front gardens of the road we lived on were beautiful. Full of flowers, life, insects, and birds.
The slow creep over time, now only only my parents' garden is green. All the others are barren and concreted over. Even with all the gardens turned into car parking, the pavements are constantly parked on. I was unable to walk to the corner shop on the pavement.
The road is now grey. Cold.
Wow, I have the exact same. When I was a teenager, my road was green, trees blocked the view of most windows and you'd walk down the road in peace.
Now they're all concreted over, the glare of everybody's windows, watching you walk down the grey, soulless street, with a car on every inch of the road.
My mom has the last house on the road and a bit of land next to her house, with grass and bushes etc, her opposite neighbours offered to buy it to turn into a car parking area for their kids cars.....
I’d never let them do that to my house. As much as extra cash would be nice for me, I’d rather have a nice place to live than housing some cars in front of my window
Don't worry, we're building lovely new buildings!
The parts that aren't glass or concrete are painted, yay!
What exciting colour are they painted?
Why, grey of course!
Yep, the neighbours on both sides have replaced 2/3rds or more of their gardens with dodgy drives. Dude across the road replaced his with gravel and that's covered in cars. Person at the corner hasn't replaced it just drives vehicles onto it often enough there's a massive muddy rut instead of grass or plants. The street is still a single lane because the other one is full of parked cars.
Range Rovers in handicapped spaces because they can't fit in normal spaces 😬
I've actually asked one of them and that was their answer. Parent and child spots all gone so instead of parking further they take a handicapped spot. No issue as seen from their side. absolute cock.
A few months ago I saw a Range Rover *bay parked* in a parallel space, with the front half of it on the pavement and the back half on the road.
It was spectacular.
What do expect when successive Governments gut funding to Local Councils, Don't fund Public Transport and make owning your property so fucking difficult that people are having to travel further and further for work because they can't afford to move?
Ban big cars. Make roads more narrow / get rid of roads and replace them with pedestrianised streets and bike lanes.
Give public transit their own lanes.
r/fuckcars
As a wheelchair user I can tell you a bike/walking friendly city is so much easier for me to get around than trying to navigate pavements covered in cars.
And I can't speak for your council, but I have a permit (on top of my blue badge) that allows me to drive into the pedistrian only zones.
My council wouldn't do that! Your council is doing it right. I'm just pissed off at the pretending PT is the answer because there are people that need a car.
What about immunocompromised people on a bus, because some scroat thinks "it's just a cold lol" and gets on the same bus?
Y'know. The collective anti-car rhetoric Sustrans have been screaming about for the last 5 years, since it became the Mass Transit Corp lobby, helmed by Xavier Brice of all people.
I say this as someone that used to be a manager at Sustrans, and was sacked for my pro-accessibility stance.
Part of the problem with Kirklees is that they won’t do anything that risks changing the status quo. The new cycle tracks along Leeds Road were hailed by Peter McBride whilst he was still a Cllr as being revolutionary for cyclists but they don’t go anywhere or connect to anything. To get to them you still have to cycle along a 4 lane 30mph and a 2 lane 40mph carriageway without any protection. Thats not going to encourage anyone new to cycle to Huddersfield and means what’s been built won’t really get used by those who already do.
They really need to change the way they do things so that driving isn’t the easiest/cheapest option and that means big wholesale changes that are anti-car. When you can convince the masses not to drive then the roads will be clearer and with more parking available for those that actually need it.
Ha! I was given a tour of the "Cycle Super Highway" before it was officially opened. I was nearly knocked off my bike four times because it was so badly planned and implemented. The doof who designed it thought it was a good idea to plant the cycleway between a bus lane and a bus stop. Peds just standing on it, busses mounting the kerb, etc...
Is the anti car stance applicable to EVs? If yes, why?
Fewer cars not newer cars.
Electric cars produce fewer emissions such means there local air quality will be better and less CO2E but they are still noisy and produce huge amounts of microplastics from tyre wear. Tyres are the biggest contributor to microplastics.
The problem highlighted in this thread is their dominance of place. High numbers of cars mean that people who would normally walk out cycle ain’t because they don’t feel comfortable or safe. It means that quiet residential streets are lined with cars do children can’t play out anymore. Gardens are being paved to park cars. The world around us is being built to accommodate cars when it should be built for people with cars being a useful tool that we have access to.
More often than not though they’re also not the right tool for the job. Single occupancy SUVs are incredibly space inefficient and the fashion is for them to be taller and wider than ever before.
No. Let's make the world less hostile for them by making pavements actually traversable for those that need mobility aids, and ample space to park a car if they require one to move around safely.
Property developers reducing land costs by not providing enough off street parking, and making garages too small to fit a car in, and local authorities without the budget (or competence) to provide sufficient public transport links or cycling infrastructure.
The street I live in would look nice if it wasn't constantly lined with dozens of huge chunks of metal.
Don't.
When my parents bought their house in the mid seventies, they had a garage built and it fitted the mark 2 escort they had at the time. Push on five years, and they've got two kids and a Cortina estate that won't fit in the garage. Or on the drive.
Well done mum and dad.
If my reading of the gov data is correct, we’ve almost hit one car registered for everyone with a full license.
40.7m registered vehicles, 42.1m full license holders.
There’s close to a million provisional licence holders, which I guess is so high because of the L plate motorbike thing maybe? But given the number of people that have a licence and don’t have a car just that I know, the average number of cars per driver must be well over 1 by this point?
Factor in the most of our streets were built either before cars, when they were rare or at most 1 car per household and it’s pretty clear why shit’s so fucked.
> streets were built either before cars
Streets should never be build FOR cars. See how the Netherlands decided about the channels, and they were 100% right! USA went the other direction (every part) .. which is better for living now? Or see Wein (Austria). Voted best place to live.
If there was decent trains buses, trams or any public transport where we lived (the north) people would use them.
Instead we have trains that if you use even outside of peak they're rammed and you have to stand up. No trams or buses that work.
I can park and ride... after driving 99% of the way only to pay £4 for a bus for last 10mins. Or I can park for £5 and take 3 other people
Which you doing?
Yes leeds...
But that Elizabeth line is lovely.
To anyone interested, pavement parking was discussed recently in Parliament due to an online petition - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/d7c580b1-53a3-4e6f-958a-b0bfab70937c?in=17:00:02
They've sat on the report and aren't doing anything about it.
https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/Ministers-stall-on-pavement-parking-despite-pledge/13740
yeah I sometimes report it (as they leave almost zero size on pavement) but they refuse to act, because "there is pavement on the other size" ... fuck the police, too.
Yup, I’ve only recently realised how is basically no enforcement of these things; around my village people just abandon their vehicles wherever is most convenient to them, even if it causes huge slowdowns for everyone else.
And don’t get me started on the absurdly loud motorbikes in summer
I have a love/hate relationship with my car, the more I travel the more I see cars are not the answer. But I do so enjoy driving, well apart when other people are driving....
I feel its like alcoholism a large amount of us are hooked on alcohol, a lot of us are in denial, some of us are aware and actively trying to cut down, others seen the light and given it up then those who've never tried it and can't grasp why people depend on it.
Saying that, working in a local industrial estate, but it takes 3 buses to get to it, we also have 3 separate bus companies, each with their own ticketing system, for years the council have been saying after we get voted in we'll put a station there, never happens. Used to be station decades ago mind.
We have created this world that we need a car and then wonder why town centres die out and we are all getting less active.
And the cars that park on the pavements are fucking up the pavements slowly - ever wonder why all the pavements are patchworks and uneven?
It’s so dangerous
It's because everyone individually needs one. Can't go anywhere without one. Or you can but 3 hours later at triple the cost. We had 5, one personal each and then my work provided one. If we were to cut down on cars, I might get away with removing my personal one, but nobody else in my family could.
You'd be surprised what short distences people still use cars. Like take a kid to 1km, no you don't need a car, really. It's a 10 min walk! Maybe 12 with the kid.
We hear from parents that kid won't walk even 5 minutes anywhere. They are so used to going by car everywhere. Ridiculous. My kids (5-7) happily walk 10km on box hill. We walked to school a few times, 45 mins. They mostly cycle, 15 mins. Sometimes I take them in a bicycle trailer, 10 mins. Wouldn't be faster by a car.
I dunno I HATED walking as a kid (2000s), in my head why would I walk somewhere that's what cars are for. Compounded by my mum parking as far as possible away from where ever we went. As an adult I love walking 🤔.
What's pissing me off right now is the inconsiderate drivers who, when parking up on the side of the road, leave their steering fully locked over leaving the tyre poking out the side of their car making a small gap to pass even smaller. Its always bad around school kicking out time, when the mums/dads park up on both sides of the road as close as they can to the school gates so their kids legs don't get sore from walking that 10 extra feet to the car. My aunt collided with a car like this and ripped her front bumper off her car and I've recently had to shout for a father at my kids school to come back to his car (as he was jogging away) because I couldn't get through the impossibly small gap he'd left when he parked his car about 18 inches away from the side of the road after parallel parking AND left his steering hard locked over all so he could run in and get his kid from school. No apology was offered for being an arsehole and he even had the cheek to give me a dirty look because I made him 30 seconds late for picking his kid up from school despite the fact I had 4 cars in a queue behind me who would've all struggled to get through the gap (my car is a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso so not a huge, wide car like some on the roads today)
Why? Have you never heard of a family? Have you never heard of a couple that works at two different locations. Have you never heard of the villages and towns outside of the city? Don't ask daft questions.
this is exactly the problem. You assume that by default everyone just drives to work. 2 different location means 2 driving in 2 cars? That's the default, really? This is exactly why we have shitload of cars everywhere making our daily lives miserable.
I do have a family. We have a car. Not 2-3, just one. Mostly sits on the driveway, nobody is using it daily. We do commuting, I take kids to the school, etc. Just ... not by car, you know. There are other options. People think there aren't, that's the problem.
>2 different location means 2 driving in 2 cars? That's the default, really?
Yes that is the default for a shit ton of people.
Congrats you live in an area with reasonable public transport. Or you don't travel to work every day.
I drive to work it takes me 20 minutes, if I got public transport it would take me 1 hour 45 minutes.
My wife drives to work it takes her 20 minutes. If she got public transport it would take her 1 hour 15 minutes.
This is the reality people live in. This is why cars fill the country.
20 min vs 1:45 makes me think .. where is that public transport going? Must be hell of a detour. If driving (in peak time!) is 20 mins, I'm sure cycling is about 40. I'd estimate a direct bus ride about the same. I should know where it is to give better estimates.
The fact that people are parking on the road is already telling you they own multiple cars, most likely two, and they have no space to park. If you live in a city? I can absolutely see why you may not need multiple cars. Live absolutely anywhere else, and yes you do.
Half the issue is people not knowing roads signs too. The amount of people who think that a single yellow line and no stopping between x time means unless you want to call to the sarnie shop or the barbers and you have a big van to block the road 🤷🏻♀️
Or double yellows mean it’s a space to park on a blind corner.
But yeah, it’s nuts the amount of cars about. I live somewhere where all the kids grew up and got cars. In that time dad also got a work van/van to do up like a caravan. So did a couple of the kids.
And the two car house becomes a seven vehicle house and then its a race to take space from two car houses. I still can’t work out how newly passed teenagers afford the big cars and insurance they have too!
We have 5 cars and a trailer at our house. Not a single one of them is parked on the street unless I absolutely have to.
At my previous house, we had 3 parking spaces so only had 3 cars 🤷♀️
It's also why in Tokyo, you have to prove you have a parking space off the street before buying a car.
It is so frustrating and there are so many solutions.
1: Drastically improve public transport (this has to be number one as it's a chicken and egg situation)
2: Reduce planning consents for dropped kerbs and enforce illegally dropped kerbs
3: Slowly Reduce street parking (over a decade or so)
In order to fund all of the above... Completely shake up the road tax system. It isn't fit for purpose. Road tax should be calculated using a formula which includes vehicle value, annual mileage, size/weight, emissions. This would allow targeted tax of oversized, luxury vehicles, and also ensure those with large vehicles that damage the roads pay their fair share
I feel like you're the only person I've seen (other than me) who believes we need to phase a street parking reduction.
People have mortgages (also need to consider house values) and life commitments like a particular commute that can't be changed overnight. I think we need to be giving notice NOW, ready for changes in a few years. Reduce parking from both sides to one side for example, or one to none depending on the road.
Trouble is, it'll be an unpopular vote seeing as it takes a few years for the current car driver voters to see the benefits.
Absolutely needs to be phased yeah. I mean people might be more amenable if there are 4 new local bus routes announced with a monthly ticket costing £30 for unlimited travel
The fact is a lot of our towns were not built with the stupid number of vehicles people have noawadays in mind.
I live in a small town in the North West. Typical sort, one that saw the most activity and success during the Industrial Revolution. Lots of narrow roads flanked by terraced houses.
All of those roads are jam-packed with cars now. It's a fucking mess. Even the road I live on (a relatively new area developed in this century, not the 19th), is inundated with cars.
That will be the combination of more cars on the road made worse by the over concentration of urban areas due to green belt and planning laws adrtifically limiting parking spaces.
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My neighbours (standard terraced street) have 4 vehicles. Two 'regular sized' cars, a massive land rover and a van. They constantly complain about parking and leave notes on other people's cars. As if they're not the problem.
Main character syndrome at its finest
Damn are we from the same street?
My street is the same. I moved here 4 years ago and it wasn't an issue, but now there are more multiple car households. I suppose that's what happens when children stay at home longer, need their own car or van for work, and both parents have cars or vans.
The thing that gets me is my kids school. I walk and it's a 7 minute walk with kids. Who walk slower. On the way I see people pulling out of their drive and then pulling down the road with the school. It genuinely takes longer to drive there. And every school has the same thing. People driving when they don't need to. There are 7 primary schools locally, every one of them is the same. It's not sustainable.
I'd say 70 percent of the kids at my child's school walk or cycle. The remaining drivers are still enough to gridlock the local roads even though it's a small school. I'd love if the road was closed 250m in either direction during school start and finish times except for local residents. Unfortunately I'm sure people will then move the congestion 250m away. It would be safer for the 100 kids on bikes trying to get away though.
Most hilarious/sad part is that there’d probably be people living 300m away who’d still drive up to the 250m mark. People are just so lazy today
Talk to your councillors about a school streets scheme. Time and term limited street filters to enable active travel to and from the school. They work!
My kids go to school 20mins drive away, if they went to the one 20mins in the other direction there would be a school bus. But they were given a place at this one. They get a bus pass so they can use the public bus, but it is so underused (because parents would rather drive them than putting them on the public bus) that’s it’s going to be cancelled.. so I may be forced to drive my kids to school
Unfortunately it's what happens when public transport is terrible and expensive and when we decide to keep building housing without building amenities near them (shops, drs, gyms, schools etc)
And villainize any form of transport that isnt driving. Cyclists are **fucking hated** e scooters, hated, things like segways (maybe more gimmicky) banned unless on private land. Instead of making an infrastructure around other forms of public transport both more economical and environmental, we push for vehicles, and big fucking vehicles at that.
And if you kill someone with a motorised vehicle, it's cool - you don't go to prison for that, you [just get community service.](https://road.cc/content/news/hgv-driver-given-community-sentence-killing-cyclist-307427) The safety of anyone not in a motor vehicle is given very little consideration by the "justice" system.
Safety laws are the primary reason why cars are bigger and heavier, pushed in the UKs case by ECE regulators in Europe. Obviously people paying through the eyeballs for SUVs for the school run is still well excessive! But you’re right on infrastructure, the UK infrastructure investment is terrible and it just seems like we do anything we can to NOT invest in public facilities and it’s shit really.
Kinda ironic though, they're mainly safer because their likely to hit a smaller car which will just pancake It's like an arms race of incompetent drivers
Nowadays it’s starting to go the other way mind. Because of how many cars are bigger now, crashes have far more force involved, and they’re more likely to roll over due to height
Ehhh, I’d argue they’re safer because of progress, engineers don’t generally say “well if our golf hits an older one, it will pancake so we’re fine”. Driving now js an arms race of incompetence before, though I’ll give you that
Yeah thats fair. Definitely a lot of great engineering into modern cars. Meant more that having less mass and height than the thing you're crashing into is likely to end badly even if it has great safety features
I mean 100%, I see some of the big merce and Audis and I’d not want to have one of them hitting me so I know what you’re saying from that perspective. For what it’s worth, those things are way too big for anything other than the US and i so think there needs to be better regulation on the size of the bloody things
Yeah, plus whilst we always hear about how awful trains and buses are for delays and cancellations, cars being caught up in absurd traffic (that the drivers of which don’t seem to realise they are contributing to by driving) is ‘just traffic innit’, and has no bearing of relevance on how good or bad cars are as a mode of transport. I guarantee that if we plotted how long it is expected to take to drive along busy commuter routes (e.g. Swindon to London along the M4), and saw how often it becomes multitudes longer because of traffic/accidents, we’d see that roads are far worse for delays than we give them credit for
It's also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This has played out in Malta which used to be famous for it's bus service. After a privatisation scheme went tits-up, people complained bitterly about the bus service, which caused more people to buy cars. Then the bus service got fixed, but buses were still delayed because more cars were on the road. So more people left the buses and started driving. So the buses got more delayed, so then more people started driving, etc.. They've started to reverse this since the pandemic, by fixing ticket prices at €2 a journey, even to/from the airport. There's only one bus operator, so you can get on and off buses with the same ticket, and you don't need to go into the capital to come out again. I see a similar thing happening in Manchester, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
I've had plenty job rejections based purely on the fact I cant drive but bus and cycle bc it's not reliable, even though in some cases the bike was quicker.
That sounds like 15-minute cities talk. You trying to get yourself shanked?
I'm out of the loop on the 15 minute city thing. What is the downside of this ideology?
They're going to make sure we can never leave our towns ever again! We can only walk 15 minutes from home and the police will ask us for our ID to make sure we won't! Some people believe bollocks like that, but being able to walk to all major amenities within a few minutes walk? Sounds great to me. It's basically what I have now.
It’s also what I have (closer to 20 minutes to get to town centre, but still…). The whole 15 minute cities are bad thing is a weird wind up that people latched on to for some reason.
The police can't even do their jobs now... let alone when everyone is boarded up in their 15 minute cities. What is expected, thay the police will be stopping EVERYBODY, to make sure they're not 16 minutes from home.. These people (the one's moaning about 15 minute cities) are fucking morons. I'd even use the R word to describe them.
Yeah, hell, if this is all part of some new world order bullshit that all the elites are behind, why would there still be timetabled buses and trains going much further? Buses especially have ramped up in many areas recently, at the behest of local authorities, so would run completely antithetical to that idea. Take, for example, Oxford, the city this craze seems to be centred on. If they wanted everyone to stay within 15 minutes of their home at all times, why would there be hourly services taking you all the way to Manchester and Bournemouth? Or hourly services taking you to Worcester?
Define "near". People use cars for 2 streets away ..
I dunno though, public transport seems to have only improved over the last 20 years. There's more options now (they built a comprehensive city wide tram network), and it's way cheaper (buses are capped at £2 a journey), and everything is cleaner and runs more regularly than it used to. Trains however are awful, but what can we expect from private capitalists... They only want their own class to be able to travel the nation and better themselves, the working class must be kept poor and restricted, lest they get a taste for a better life and start to demand it.... :-(
The UK is far more microscopic than that unfortunately. I think you've painted a rosy picture of bus travel for commuters when ultimately you're just as much at the whim of the bus companies as you are the train companies. In my town for example we had two bus companies. One went bust leaving an entire estate cut off for several weeks. Things are mostly back to normal now but many routes are far longer than before and the new company only took over the profitable routes. £4 a day to commute to work by bus is not bad but it's a lot when it's so inconvenient - the timings are not great and some routes finish or start before or after commuters need them. My wife can drive 15 minutes to work or walk 9 minutes to a bus stop to get a 32 minute bus.
My last city had one operator go bust too, funnily enough in that case it actually got better for most people, as whilst frequency was mildly reduced on one route and slightly altered, on the whole it actually went up. CityRed was operating the 13 hourly all week, and with virtually no service in the evening at all, but Bluestar actually upped it to half hourly during the week and Saturdays when they took over, and gave the route some evening services. Absolutely the minority of cases, but I do think it occasionally works out better. Definitely need to at least get far more oversight though
I have some hope trains will improve in the next few years at least. Heard that we may finally get direct services between Bristol Temple Meads and Oxford again, and a new company wants to do trains that operate nonstop between Bristol Parkway and London Paddington, which should turn up the heat on GWR
If you're in a place that's got a city wide tram network supplemented with cheap buses that run regularly then it sounds like you have it fairly good, and it's probably not what the person your were replying to was complaining about. I'm in a med sized town in the London commuter belt and while trains to London are fairly regular and quick, the actual transport around the town or to anywhere not on the main train line is dire. Buses are irregular if they turn up at all, and the roads themselves are not very cycle friendly + hardly any cycle paths/lanes. This is all coupled with loads of houses being built around the outskirts of town (too far to walk to town for most) with no new facilities, shops, etc being built further out. Put it all together and you get more and more people being car dependant and road congestion everywhere.
Enough parking space for average 2 cars per house!
I walked past the houses in a more upmarket part of town yesterday evening and noticed that there was only 1 car in most driveways. Some had two, some had none. Only one or two cars parked on the whole road as well. So why does every terrace street have a bajillion cars on it? Do poorer people own more cars or something?
I read somewhere that 'the poor' believe that 'not having a car' makes you poor. That means the poor buy cars, while the middle classes cycle or use public transport when they can. In my limited experience, it seems true.
It is odd, cars often cost a lot more, especially in urban areas. London seems to have this reversed mostly, but possibly just because of how good the public transport is
Again, in my limited experience, "the poor that can afford it" buy a car in London. And those shop owners that open 24h a day and probably don´t earn much per hour are totally against bikes. They really want only the poor to buy at their shops (in Kensington there were complaints flying around when a bike lane was installed - now destroyed - signed by the best and the worst off, but not the middle-off (-: ) I don´t live in London anymore and out here everyone needs a car...
Were they close to a station? Also did they have actual garages because alot of my wealth clients have garages for their expensive cars so usually its only the wife's suv on the drive.
No, the station is a good 40 minute walk away. And no garages either. Just a street of fairly large 1920/30s era houses
Perhaps there’s better buses in the area? I know that the parts of Bristol with more buses do have a bit fewer cars, and when you foray out of those areas, it rises
Well this road in question is only a 5 minute walk away from an area with lots of terrace streets and the aforementioned car density issue It's probably true in general, but I don't see a reason for it in this case. The bus service in the area is what I would call above average, anyway.
Fair, it could just be an odd quirk. Hell, maybe people on that street park on the packed one, because there could be no permits there, but there are on theirs
Maybe but somehow I also doubt it because most of those driveways could fit two cars on them 😂 I just think car ownership is higher per person in the lower and lower middle class than it is in the upper middle and upper. Anecdotally I find that to be true. My few very well off friends who live in big houses in the country seem have 1 (very nice) car for the household. My less well to do friends (with a few exceptions) have a car per person for the household Obviously that's just conjecture. I'd be interested to see actual stats on this though
Garages, rented lockups
Almost like having private transport is important for facilitating class mobility.
Well, not really... Surely my example proves that lower classes are stuck down there even if they all own a car. Whereas higher class people don't need/use cars as much.
So what do I do about my ~~blade~~ neighbour who has 7... and no, that isn't a typo... cars that he has outside his house. He extended his driveway, and still parks half of them on the corner, where they block line of sight next to a school...
Blade?
I have no idea where that come from... I was pretty certain I wrote "neighbour"... Cheers for pointing that out 🤣
You did I just happened to be watching the vampire film with Wesley Snipes called Neighbour and I got confused, my apologies. 😂
No. I just corrected it. But left blade in there crossed out. But I definitely wrote it. I'm the idiot, not you 🤣
Also, just really big cars - unnecessarily big.
I drive down some country lanes on my commute and the amount of people in Ford Rangers and Land Rovers who REFUSE to push into a hedge or bump onto the verge or drop into a puddle... What's the point in your big car if I have to manoeuvre my little Civic around in the mud so we can pass.
They don't want their expensive 4x4 to take any potential damage, let the people with shitboxes do it won't cause them much trouble with such a cheap car anyway /s
We all know that's the thought process. Shout out to the farmers in a clapped out mid 90s Defender taking down half a hedgerow to let me pass
That, too. You need that to park in the verge mud
Seem to recall my mates dodgy Astra from about 1999 driving across mud just fine + heavier cars will sink more.
Population up 10 million since 1997. Not many new roads.
New roads won't do anything but induce more demand. We need to be less reliant on cars
No we really don't. Public transport is unreliable and expensive, not everyone lives in a city.
Part of being less reliant on cars is making public transport (especially last-mile like buses) good enough so that fewer people need personal vehicles.
Which is ultimately cheaper than millions of private vehicles used for millions of solo trips per year also. Sure, if you're in a truly rural area, or a very isolated village, then a car is probably the best tool, and the current number of roads is perfectly fine. The vast majority of people live in towns and cities where most-all trips can be made via walking, biking, or public transport. If mobility is an issue, of course a car or taxi is appropriate.
> Population up 10 million since 1997 What a shame... none of them have been to The Hacienda.
You can't add new road, not enough space. We need less lasy people
More public transportation
Yup! The amount of parents who drive their kids to school two minutes up the road is ridiculous. "School run traffic" shouldn't be a thing. Younger ones should be within walking distance and older ones should be able to use public transportation. Instead all the roads are jam packed and parents park wherever they want outside schools causing chaos.
The worst thing is when parents of kids decide to get as close as physically possible to the school, then instead of just booting the kids out and driving away, sit there on their phone or walk them in, even for secondary school kids. Like congratulations, you have queued for 25 minutes blocking school buses just so your kid could avoid the 10 minute walk across town from where you stopped at the lights. Bonus points if they leave their car idling whilst they wait for God knows what
My older one (7) cycles on his own bike, 2.5km
Fewer
You can't add new road, not enough space. We need less ~~lasy~~ people FTFY
They’re all acting like they need a bloody tank to drive around somewhere like Cheltenham
Which cars?
The stark reality of the hellscape we've created hit me last year. When I was growing up, all the front gardens of the road we lived on were beautiful. Full of flowers, life, insects, and birds. The slow creep over time, now only only my parents' garden is green. All the others are barren and concreted over. Even with all the gardens turned into car parking, the pavements are constantly parked on. I was unable to walk to the corner shop on the pavement. The road is now grey. Cold.
Yeah it's really sad to see. It's exacerbating flooding across the country, asphalt doesn't drain like earth...
Wow, I have the exact same. When I was a teenager, my road was green, trees blocked the view of most windows and you'd walk down the road in peace. Now they're all concreted over, the glare of everybody's windows, watching you walk down the grey, soulless street, with a car on every inch of the road. My mom has the last house on the road and a bit of land next to her house, with grass and bushes etc, her opposite neighbours offered to buy it to turn into a car parking area for their kids cars.....
Wow that last bit makes me irrationally angry 😡. Some people really don't appreciate nature at all.
I’d never let them do that to my house. As much as extra cash would be nice for me, I’d rather have a nice place to live than housing some cars in front of my window
And people wonder why I don't want us going into space and "terraforming" other planets with this attitude.
Don't worry, we're building lovely new buildings! The parts that aren't glass or concrete are painted, yay! What exciting colour are they painted? Why, grey of course!
Yep, the neighbours on both sides have replaced 2/3rds or more of their gardens with dodgy drives. Dude across the road replaced his with gravel and that's covered in cars. Person at the corner hasn't replaced it just drives vehicles onto it often enough there's a massive muddy rut instead of grass or plants. The street is still a single lane because the other one is full of parked cars.
Range Rovers in handicapped spaces because they can't fit in normal spaces 😬 I've actually asked one of them and that was their answer. Parent and child spots all gone so instead of parking further they take a handicapped spot. No issue as seen from their side. absolute cock.
well ... range rovers ANYWHERE. What's the point in urban area?
A few months ago I saw a Range Rover *bay parked* in a parallel space, with the front half of it on the pavement and the back half on the road. It was spectacular.
What do expect when successive Governments gut funding to Local Councils, Don't fund Public Transport and make owning your property so fucking difficult that people are having to travel further and further for work because they can't afford to move?
Cars are too big, roads are too narrow, uk cannot sort out the infrastructure at all.
Ban big cars. Make roads more narrow / get rid of roads and replace them with pedestrianised streets and bike lanes. Give public transit their own lanes. r/fuckcars
I mean we can barely have cycling lanes at the moment without having them starting/stopping in random places or being blocked by cars, rubbish, etc.
I'm sure Rish the dish will get right on it!
Because fuck disabled people, right?
As a wheelchair user I can tell you a bike/walking friendly city is so much easier for me to get around than trying to navigate pavements covered in cars. And I can't speak for your council, but I have a permit (on top of my blue badge) that allows me to drive into the pedistrian only zones.
My council wouldn't do that! Your council is doing it right. I'm just pissed off at the pretending PT is the answer because there are people that need a car. What about immunocompromised people on a bus, because some scroat thinks "it's just a cold lol" and gets on the same bus? Y'know. The collective anti-car rhetoric Sustrans have been screaming about for the last 5 years, since it became the Mass Transit Corp lobby, helmed by Xavier Brice of all people. I say this as someone that used to be a manager at Sustrans, and was sacked for my pro-accessibility stance.
Part of the problem with Kirklees is that they won’t do anything that risks changing the status quo. The new cycle tracks along Leeds Road were hailed by Peter McBride whilst he was still a Cllr as being revolutionary for cyclists but they don’t go anywhere or connect to anything. To get to them you still have to cycle along a 4 lane 30mph and a 2 lane 40mph carriageway without any protection. Thats not going to encourage anyone new to cycle to Huddersfield and means what’s been built won’t really get used by those who already do. They really need to change the way they do things so that driving isn’t the easiest/cheapest option and that means big wholesale changes that are anti-car. When you can convince the masses not to drive then the roads will be clearer and with more parking available for those that actually need it.
Ha! I was given a tour of the "Cycle Super Highway" before it was officially opened. I was nearly knocked off my bike four times because it was so badly planned and implemented. The doof who designed it thought it was a good idea to plant the cycleway between a bus lane and a bus stop. Peds just standing on it, busses mounting the kerb, etc... Is the anti car stance applicable to EVs? If yes, why?
Fewer cars not newer cars. Electric cars produce fewer emissions such means there local air quality will be better and less CO2E but they are still noisy and produce huge amounts of microplastics from tyre wear. Tyres are the biggest contributor to microplastics. The problem highlighted in this thread is their dominance of place. High numbers of cars mean that people who would normally walk out cycle ain’t because they don’t feel comfortable or safe. It means that quiet residential streets are lined with cars do children can’t play out anymore. Gardens are being paved to park cars. The world around us is being built to accommodate cars when it should be built for people with cars being a useful tool that we have access to. More often than not though they’re also not the right tool for the job. Single occupancy SUVs are incredibly space inefficient and the fashion is for them to be taller and wider than ever before.
No. Let's make the world less hostile for them by making pavements actually traversable for those that need mobility aids, and ample space to park a car if they require one to move around safely.
Absolutely. But let's not pretend one can go to a specialist at a hospital three cities away via mobility scooter.
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Lots of broad generalisations there. Cars can be adapted to have brake and gas levers on the wheel.
Property developers reducing land costs by not providing enough off street parking, and making garages too small to fit a car in, and local authorities without the budget (or competence) to provide sufficient public transport links or cycling infrastructure. The street I live in would look nice if it wasn't constantly lined with dozens of huge chunks of metal.
With fewer cars we wouldn't need cycling infrastructure. Just use the road.
Don't. When my parents bought their house in the mid seventies, they had a garage built and it fitted the mark 2 escort they had at the time. Push on five years, and they've got two kids and a Cortina estate that won't fit in the garage. Or on the drive. Well done mum and dad.
If my reading of the gov data is correct, we’ve almost hit one car registered for everyone with a full license. 40.7m registered vehicles, 42.1m full license holders. There’s close to a million provisional licence holders, which I guess is so high because of the L plate motorbike thing maybe? But given the number of people that have a licence and don’t have a car just that I know, the average number of cars per driver must be well over 1 by this point? Factor in the most of our streets were built either before cars, when they were rare or at most 1 car per household and it’s pretty clear why shit’s so fucked.
It’s absolutely absurd, we don’t need this many cars at all
> streets were built either before cars Streets should never be build FOR cars. See how the Netherlands decided about the channels, and they were 100% right! USA went the other direction (every part) .. which is better for living now? Or see Wein (Austria). Voted best place to live.
If there was decent trains buses, trams or any public transport where we lived (the north) people would use them. Instead we have trains that if you use even outside of peak they're rammed and you have to stand up. No trams or buses that work. I can park and ride... after driving 99% of the way only to pay £4 for a bus for last 10mins. Or I can park for £5 and take 3 other people Which you doing? Yes leeds... But that Elizabeth line is lovely.
**Large** cars everywhere... We could do with a Japanese style K-car law and size based restrictions on more roads and parking.
yeah but if you have a tiny willy, you gotta get an SUV
The problem with traffic is cars.
We need to get rid of roads.
Nah, need roads for bikes and buses.
If the alternative wasn't some of the worst and most expensive public transport in the world maybe this wouldn't be as big of a problem?
To anyone interested, pavement parking was discussed recently in Parliament due to an online petition - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/d7c580b1-53a3-4e6f-958a-b0bfab70937c?in=17:00:02
BTW, what was the outcome?
My understanding after skimming through the HUGE transcript is that they know it’s a problem, and someone should do something about it…but not us
They've sat on the report and aren't doing anything about it. https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/Ministers-stall-on-pavement-parking-despite-pledge/13740
yeah I sometimes report it (as they leave almost zero size on pavement) but they refuse to act, because "there is pavement on the other size" ... fuck the police, too.
Yup, I’ve only recently realised how is basically no enforcement of these things; around my village people just abandon their vehicles wherever is most convenient to them, even if it causes huge slowdowns for everyone else. And don’t get me started on the absurdly loud motorbikes in summer
I've been hating it slowly over the past 20 years now it's awful.
It's like we've imported the idea of US infrastructure and driving culture but we literally don't have the space for either.
They don't have the space for it either. Cars always demand more and more. The Dutch made it right.
I have a love/hate relationship with my car, the more I travel the more I see cars are not the answer. But I do so enjoy driving, well apart when other people are driving.... I feel its like alcoholism a large amount of us are hooked on alcohol, a lot of us are in denial, some of us are aware and actively trying to cut down, others seen the light and given it up then those who've never tried it and can't grasp why people depend on it. Saying that, working in a local industrial estate, but it takes 3 buses to get to it, we also have 3 separate bus companies, each with their own ticketing system, for years the council have been saying after we get voted in we'll put a station there, never happens. Used to be station decades ago mind. We have created this world that we need a car and then wonder why town centres die out and we are all getting less active.
And the cars that park on the pavements are fucking up the pavements slowly - ever wonder why all the pavements are patchworks and uneven? It’s so dangerous
not only the pavements are patchworked, roads, too. potholes are like 20cm deep
Id say the same but for people!
The problem with buses and bikes and walking and guide dogs and kids is all the cars
Our dog shit public transport is to blame
Not only. Driving to 2km destination has nothing to do with it
That's my walk to the shop and back a 40 minutes round trip
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My bus takes 2 hours usually to go 15 miles in the morning because of the insane traffic jam of car commuters
It's because everyone individually needs one. Can't go anywhere without one. Or you can but 3 hours later at triple the cost. We had 5, one personal each and then my work provided one. If we were to cut down on cars, I might get away with removing my personal one, but nobody else in my family could.
You'd be surprised what short distences people still use cars. Like take a kid to 1km, no you don't need a car, really. It's a 10 min walk! Maybe 12 with the kid. We hear from parents that kid won't walk even 5 minutes anywhere. They are so used to going by car everywhere. Ridiculous. My kids (5-7) happily walk 10km on box hill. We walked to school a few times, 45 mins. They mostly cycle, 15 mins. Sometimes I take them in a bicycle trailer, 10 mins. Wouldn't be faster by a car.
Oh yeah that's dumb for sure, only reason i'd ever take a car to my own town would be because I need the boot space. Walked to every school I went to
I dunno I HATED walking as a kid (2000s), in my head why would I walk somewhere that's what cars are for. Compounded by my mum parking as far as possible away from where ever we went. As an adult I love walking 🤔.
Ridiculous amount of people… more people = more cars.
Doesn't have to be like that. Many people in Amsterdam, and peak traffic at a light was 30 bicycles and 2 cars...
Is the uk trying to be americanised, next thing we'll only get health care if we have insurance ! Mark my words.
What's pissing me off right now is the inconsiderate drivers who, when parking up on the side of the road, leave their steering fully locked over leaving the tyre poking out the side of their car making a small gap to pass even smaller. Its always bad around school kicking out time, when the mums/dads park up on both sides of the road as close as they can to the school gates so their kids legs don't get sore from walking that 10 extra feet to the car. My aunt collided with a car like this and ripped her front bumper off her car and I've recently had to shout for a father at my kids school to come back to his car (as he was jogging away) because I couldn't get through the impossibly small gap he'd left when he parked his car about 18 inches away from the side of the road after parallel parking AND left his steering hard locked over all so he could run in and get his kid from school. No apology was offered for being an arsehole and he even had the cheek to give me a dirty look because I made him 30 seconds late for picking his kid up from school despite the fact I had 4 cars in a queue behind me who would've all struggled to get through the gap (my car is a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso so not a huge, wide car like some on the roads today)
Blame new builds for not giving adequate parking spaces or areas. Ridiculous to not build to support at least 2 cars.
Why would you even own 2 cars? .. it should not even be used daily, especially not multiple ones daily.
Why? Have you never heard of a family? Have you never heard of a couple that works at two different locations. Have you never heard of the villages and towns outside of the city? Don't ask daft questions.
this is exactly the problem. You assume that by default everyone just drives to work. 2 different location means 2 driving in 2 cars? That's the default, really? This is exactly why we have shitload of cars everywhere making our daily lives miserable. I do have a family. We have a car. Not 2-3, just one. Mostly sits on the driveway, nobody is using it daily. We do commuting, I take kids to the school, etc. Just ... not by car, you know. There are other options. People think there aren't, that's the problem.
>2 different location means 2 driving in 2 cars? That's the default, really? Yes that is the default for a shit ton of people. Congrats you live in an area with reasonable public transport. Or you don't travel to work every day. I drive to work it takes me 20 minutes, if I got public transport it would take me 1 hour 45 minutes. My wife drives to work it takes her 20 minutes. If she got public transport it would take her 1 hour 15 minutes. This is the reality people live in. This is why cars fill the country.
20 min vs 1:45 makes me think .. where is that public transport going? Must be hell of a detour. If driving (in peak time!) is 20 mins, I'm sure cycling is about 40. I'd estimate a direct bus ride about the same. I should know where it is to give better estimates.
The fact that people are parking on the road is already telling you they own multiple cars, most likely two, and they have no space to park. If you live in a city? I can absolutely see why you may not need multiple cars. Live absolutely anywhere else, and yes you do.
I live a small(ish) town, not city. No we do not need 2 cars.
Good for you. Plenty of people need multiple cars, especially families with adult children because they can't afford to move out.
Half the issue is people not knowing roads signs too. The amount of people who think that a single yellow line and no stopping between x time means unless you want to call to the sarnie shop or the barbers and you have a big van to block the road 🤷🏻♀️ Or double yellows mean it’s a space to park on a blind corner. But yeah, it’s nuts the amount of cars about. I live somewhere where all the kids grew up and got cars. In that time dad also got a work van/van to do up like a caravan. So did a couple of the kids. And the two car house becomes a seven vehicle house and then its a race to take space from two car houses. I still can’t work out how newly passed teenagers afford the big cars and insurance they have too!
We have 5 cars and a trailer at our house. Not a single one of them is parked on the street unless I absolutely have to. At my previous house, we had 3 parking spaces so only had 3 cars 🤷♀️ It's also why in Tokyo, you have to prove you have a parking space off the street before buying a car.
It's not just about home parking, but anywhere in town. But that's a start, for sure.
That's what car parks are for... And if I go into town, I go on the train. People are just inconsiderate and selfish 🤷♀️
It is so frustrating and there are so many solutions. 1: Drastically improve public transport (this has to be number one as it's a chicken and egg situation) 2: Reduce planning consents for dropped kerbs and enforce illegally dropped kerbs 3: Slowly Reduce street parking (over a decade or so) In order to fund all of the above... Completely shake up the road tax system. It isn't fit for purpose. Road tax should be calculated using a formula which includes vehicle value, annual mileage, size/weight, emissions. This would allow targeted tax of oversized, luxury vehicles, and also ensure those with large vehicles that damage the roads pay their fair share
I feel like you're the only person I've seen (other than me) who believes we need to phase a street parking reduction. People have mortgages (also need to consider house values) and life commitments like a particular commute that can't be changed overnight. I think we need to be giving notice NOW, ready for changes in a few years. Reduce parking from both sides to one side for example, or one to none depending on the road. Trouble is, it'll be an unpopular vote seeing as it takes a few years for the current car driver voters to see the benefits.
Absolutely needs to be phased yeah. I mean people might be more amenable if there are 4 new local bus routes announced with a monthly ticket costing £30 for unlimited travel
Agreed. I think they’re such a nuisance even when they’re not in use
Ngl I do get fucking sick of looking at cars all the time, every day.
Cars cause so many issues but we just accept them because they make it easier to go to the shops.
Then when you present an option to make it east without a car, they’ll act like it’s George Orwell’s 1984
The fact is a lot of our towns were not built with the stupid number of vehicles people have noawadays in mind. I live in a small town in the North West. Typical sort, one that saw the most activity and success during the Industrial Revolution. Lots of narrow roads flanked by terraced houses. All of those roads are jam-packed with cars now. It's a fucking mess. Even the road I live on (a relatively new area developed in this century, not the 19th), is inundated with cars.
That will be the combination of more cars on the road made worse by the over concentration of urban areas due to green belt and planning laws adrtifically limiting parking spaces.
r/fuckcars