Published on 12, July, 2020
I think it's stupid that we have cars. They're a massive waste of money. They make public spaces less accessible. It's harder for children to play on the street or to walk where you want to go. They've led to high streets becoming more empty as cars go to large out-of-town supermarkets.
Sometimes people die in car crashes, needlessly, leaving families devestated.
People who can't drive are discriminated against. We have to rely on infrequent bus and rail services that are sometimes overpriced.
All the money spent on buying a car, the insurance, MOT, tax, maintenance and repairs, petrol, imagine what that money could do if those cars weren't there. It would give people money to spend on building better buildings, facilities, public transport, social services, healthcare, education.
I think he’s talking about speed limiters built into cars. Of course that would only work for new cars. Second hand cars are more popular right now due to economic factors.
I agree with this and the OP.
Other than motorways you can’t go any faster than 60mph anyway.
And if you impose more rules, the people you complain about will ignore them anyway. That seems to be how rules work .
Okay so I've come to a different conclusion. Maybe cars are necessary but I think the rules should be stricter. I'm so tired of people who speed and make noise. There should be noise limits imposed in my opinion and also I just think cars should have a lower maximum speed limit imposed by law. In my opinion maybe about 60mph and have limits on the acceleration too. Maybe I sound like a killjoy but I don't see why hooligans who use roads as race tracks should be allowed to carry on doing that harassing people who want peace and quiet and sometimes causing awful accidents. I can appreciate what people have said about the practical use of cars, I just think they shouldn't be there to cause mayhem.
I depend on a car, even to access public transport.
Those, in high places, view all drivers as the scum-of-the-earth. Simply because we live out in the Sticks. Our, Godless, world is now dog-eat-dog. We lost our willingness to connect with others in real life.
Were we, perhaps, the Guinea Pigs for this great experiment?
Yeah, that's the catch.
Taxation destroyed our country.
People have become more reliant on cars now that lots of shopping places are out of town. It is also difficult where I live because our hospital doesn't have A&E so often people have to use a taxi to get there.
However where I agree with you is that I see a lot of able bodied people driving the short distance to our local shops. When my son was young I took him everywhere in his pushchair during the week and even went on the bus to nearby towns. Another thing that annoys me is vehicles that run their engines for ages before they drive away which is unpleasant for those walking.
I live in one suburb of Glasgow and my work location is on the other side of town.
To get there by public transport I’d have a 5 minute walk to the bus stop, waiting anything up to 20 minutes for a bus, then half an hour or so into the city centre, then walk to the train station, wait on a train, get the train to near my work then walk up to the office. That could take up to 1.5 hours.
Or I could drive door to door in around 20-25 minutes.
The buses would be a lot busier
I agree in general, and perhaps one day when self-driving cars are a real thing, we will just summon one when needed instead of everyone having one.
But most of the country has terrible public transport and I don't see that changing. Even where public transport is better, it's not always useable by everyone. When I was looking after my elderly parents there was no way I could have got them to the nearest bus stop without a car and then getting them onto the bus would have been a nightmare, as they could barely walk.
So for many people a car is the only realistic option.
Lets say hypotheticly you live in northerly subburbe of city A and want to go into northerly suburbe of a city B 10 miles east. By bus you get a bus south to city center A. Change to another bus east to city center B then change to another bus north to subburbe B. By car you just drive east. If we want to get bus journy times towards car times, the same order of magnatude, We need more routes between subburbes, we also need more frequent busses. But with all those extra busses on the road a lot of them will be mostly empty, with less than 10 pasengers even. We might as well make them smaller ... but wait we already have small busses for just a few pasengers ... they're called taxis. Only no one can aford them. Now if the goverment wanted to subserdise ride share taxis so they could compeat with bus prices I'd be all for it. But they won't because the cost in terms of subserdies would be astranomical.
If I was in charge of my city, I would ban all private vehicles other than for blue badge holders. Cars are a waste of space. The bus services would run much more reliably without traffic and people blocking the roads by parking like idiots.
I need a car. I have a disability that makes travel by public transport really difficult, not to mention the sharing of space makes my anxiety highly spiked
I drive and recently I've had to go with out a car for several months. It was murder. Public transport is wolely unreliable. Imposable to get around. Busses don't come on time, they get canceled for no obvious reasion. You can't get home after 9-10 because the busses stop. And even when the busses run on time journies that take 45 minuetes in a car can take an hour and a half or more on the bus. If you want to do anything other than just go in and out of your local city center you need a car where I live, and even then you may be late or have to get a taxi home.Yesterday to go from one subburbe of my city to another on public trasport took an hour. In a car its 10-15 minuets.
Exclusivly using public transport is actually very limiting.
Lots of people need cars like people with severe disabilities who can’t walk. So it’s not stupid. Cars were invented for a reason. You don’t need to get rid of cars to spend on health etc. You need to get rid of the fascist English government that gives our money to bail out their cronies. The reason you don’t have better buildings and good healthcare is because of your government not cars.
I tend to drive my classic car when the weather is good, it’s 65 years old so its carbon footprint is very small, its outlived about 10 modern cars. I do live near the London Underground but find being near to people unbearable. I do understand your point of view, unfortunately the tax on fuel is a massive income for the government, it’s a bit like smoking, the tax from it pays for a lot of the NHS, unfortunately the smokers end up needing the NHS.
I've never owned a car and tend to walk everywhere. Or use public transport. The expense of cars is too high alongside the housing crisis, low wages, and general cost of living crisis (capitalism on a total blinder these days!).
I agree, cars are idiotic and need phasing out. Certainly with something more environmentally friendly (cue the eye-rolling from anyone who reads tabloids). But we need to be protecting our health and the planet, with all these cars hurtling around pelting out toxic fumes it's no wonder so many illnesses are on the up.
EVs are one solution and will help, but the Tories just backed out their green initiative on that (huge surprise).
The problem right now is far too many people, particularly the older generations, have come to view car ownership as an inherent birth right. Rather than the occasional luxury it should be.
And businesses are also too heavily reliant on it. Ridiculously, even the ones where working from home should be the norm. But the anti-WFH propaganda from the Tories has led to a surge of people returning to the office in their cars etc. Despite not investing in proper road infrastructures, which is why it's so horrible travelling anywhere long distance by car these days.
It's a mess and it's been allowed to be blown out of all proportions. And it won't be addressed, sadly. In 10 years time people will drive straight out of their garage into a traffic jam.
My dad has a car which is mot and tax exempt. I think it's ulez exempt as well. He drives to London a lot but their emissions charge doesn't apply
Cars can be very expensive but I think for a lot of people it's necessary as it allows them to get to work and hospital when needed
At the end of last year I needed hospital treatment and an ambulance got me from the mental health unit I'm in and if cars didn't exist I might have died of blood poisoning because the hospital is 30+ miles away.
They are an expense but they're a useful expense. Plus it beats public transport and for me that's a bonus because public transport is always busy and noisy.
Not very autistic friendly
Hello Roswell,
I live in a rural location and so need a vehicle for transport. The bus service has been cut back and even with my rail card, the fares are too expensive for me to travel too often not to mention the sheer unreliability at present. I agree with you that we need better public transport not paying companies to run our services which only leads to higher fares. I cycle more than I drive and walk as well but without my vehicle, I would be stranded. It is both tax and MOT exempt plus the insurance is reasonable so not quite a money pit .