how much to give up your car?
 

Most of you know I commute a long way to work (over 100 miles a day round trip) and I car share where possible with a lad from Padiham and another from Rawtenstall. Last night whilst stuck in the Q's on the M6 over Thelwall we got to discussing just how much teh goverment would have to put up fuel and taxes etc that would have an effect on us.

I drive a relatively old car ( 97 Volvo ) which IO converted to LPG when I bought it nearly 3 years and approaching 100K miles ago. It cost me just over £5K all in back then and I tend to work on if I get 1 year for each £1K then I'm doing alright due to the mileage I do. It costs me about £12 a day in LPG and just short of £200 in road tax. Tyres I reckon on £1/day and its usually ~£400 a year for insurance.

We got to talking about road tax and the new £1000 4x4 tax that is coming in. I argues that if you're paying >£40K for a X5/Range Rover/Q7 etc then that £1K isn't that much and even if it was every year it wouldn't stop people buying them new. However, would you consider buying one second hand if they had that amount of road tax no matter what age they were? I put forward that untill they reach the sub £5K then depreciation is far more costly than the actual running costs of the car in the majority of cases.

Again with fuel, just how much would it take fuel to go up before you considered buying a smaller more economical(less fun/prestigous) car than what you drive now? My thoughts were that it would push me more into looking into other things, working from home more often, car sharing more than we do already etc.

any thoughts or views?

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

Eventhough im not working at the moment (so do around 6k miles a year) I would be completely lost without my car. I cannot get my double pram on a bus. I struggle paying the insurance etc but that is something that I accept being on benefits. I driver a 1.4td skoda so its not a gas guzzler or anything like that but recently I am finding it difficult to keep fuel in it due to the rises in the price of fuel, its getting silly. But back to the point, I think it would take a lot for me to give up my car, and by doing this it would meant that I would be confined to accy for the next few years of my life while these two are in a pram

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

Wouldnt bother me anyway my transport belongs to rossendale transport or lancs united!!!

I did have a micra though when i was driving so i couldnt go much smaller than that could i?

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

My car is a 1000cc Seat.
I only use it for short local journeys of 2 miles or less.
I get a bus free for longer journeys.
I bought it new 6 years ago and have not yet reach 10,000 miles.
When it was new I was fitter and did some long trips then.
Now I rarely drive more than 6 miles a week.
It may seem a waste having a car, but not to me.
It costs me £5.50 a week to keep legal and roadworthy.
A taxi fare, one way, to the nearest bus stop is £3.
If I moved to live near a bus stop (and not at the top of a hill), I might consider selling it
- but not otherwise.

Commuting is such a waste of time which could be better spent.
I feel sad for anyone who needs to do it in order to get a decent wage to survive on,
but realise that is the reason why - no one commutes by choice - do they

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I am only playing at it Ian, besides I enjoy my 75 mile round trip to work ;)

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

In my case Margaret there are very few jobs for what I do round here so I can earn a lot more by being prepared to work so far away. I go in extra early leaving home at ~6am and I'm usually home by 5:15. I also do a 9 day fortnight to spend time with Siobhan.

Why don't I move closer? few reasons, my elderly mum lives in Spring Hill and as my sisters both live overseas I can't move away without taking here with us which she wouldn't want to do. Julie is very close to her family and Grandma helps with childcare during the week. I'm also happy to live here. I have a lovely home in a lovely area and if I tried to move to Knutsford where I work I would be lucky to buy a house with what ours is worth. I also like to point out to my workmates that Accrington is ideally placed. Its 30 mins from M/C city centre, 40 mins from teh seaside, 1 hour from the Lakes, I can be in any of a dozen different towns for shopping etc within 30 mins. We have the Ribble Valley on our doorstep and house prices are still one of teh lowest in the North West.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

It's good to see someone pointing out the good things about this area for a change. :)

It's easy to get caught up in complaining. Karma sent. :D

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

Couldn't give up mine, unless I become more disabled than what I am.

Margaret, mines a Seat, 1.9 deisel, bought it new 10 years ago, still in good order, best milage I ever got was 60.1 mpg whilst on holiday in Scotland. I keep a log of all fuel used and jouneys, habit from when I was in the Fire Brigade, had to keep records of all fuel, oil and journeys, even of fuel used in other than fire engines.

Be lost now only use it for shopping and trips to Accy library, our dog Eedie even has her own seat belt, I'm not allowed to go out without her, she even knows I'm going out before I do.

Retlaw.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

i dont have a car -but then again my trip to work is probably around a 200 step round trip
having a car would help in picking the children up at weekend as one is in manchester and one is in haslingden - a long trip on the bus for my partner at the weekends
it would also be usful for cutting down on delivery costs for diy deliveries etc because public transport and kitchen cupboards/tongue and grooving/carpets do not make for a good partnership. :D
it would save money on nights out because i dont mind not drinking so would save on taxi fares

so if i did get a car - then for my needs it would probably only be a run around anyway
hopefully i wouldnt get lazy and start driving it to work lol but one never knows :D

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

will give ours up when we sod off to spain, at the moment son lives down the smoke, sis lives midlands, daughter lives out in sticks so not practical to give it up.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I don't drive so I won't bother answering .:o

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

By the way when i bought the Micra i paid £1500 for it. When i sold it 3 years later i got £1200 for it.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I'm lucky that I can afford to run my car.

It's only small, and has only just done four thousand miles in four years, so the running costs are kept to a minimum, because of how little petrol I use, and I'm on the lowest mileage tariff for the insurance.

I'll have to give up my car when the D.V.L.A. tell me I'm no loneger fit to drive, but happily that won't be for at least another three years, as they've recently renewed my licence for that amount of time.:)

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

The rises are working - I'd say the vast majority of the people at my college who are over 17 dont drive - simply because cannot afford to buy/run/insure. My girlfriend's step dad bought the car and her mum pays the insurance and yet she still struggles to afford the petrol.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I past my test aged seventeen, but all the time I lived in London I never had a car. I couldn't have driven to work in it because there was nowhere to park, besides it was quicker on the Tube, and keeping a car just to drive up here every month or so would have been uneconomical.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

the thing is increasing the car tax by the amounts on the bigger motors is no point as the ppl wiht the q7's and range's etc can afford them and the increases dont really hit them hard.

but the govt messes up - they want child car seats but those with 3 kids need to upgrade to a bigger car to fit them or else they risk gettin fined etc

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

but Mani, what about reasale value, its all well that they can afford it whilst they keep it but the second hand market probably wouldn't want to so teh prices would drop. at teh moment I recall you lose between 50 and 60% of a cars initial value in teh first 3 years. if that became 75% becasue no one wanted them second had would it influence you to buy it in teh first place?

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I guess right now people who buy new cars do it on a 3 yearly cycle, I think that cycle will just grow and more people will change cars every 4 or 5 years.
They wont change my car habit even with the 1000 pound tax, I'll just have to work harder to be able to afford it!

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I would love to give up my car. I do about 12,000 miles per year mainly business.

I used to use my car less for short journeys but then Blackburn Council sold off the bus service and Transdev decided to cut our buses so now I have to use the car.

I believe that if public transport was more frequent, went where people want to catch buses and was affordable a lot more of us would give up private transport. This goverment seems to think you have to tax people into forsaking their cars when really they should be rewarding us for not using them. We need a national public transport policy that encourages us to move around in a more environmentally friendly way

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

absolutely agree, I cannot get to work on public transport, leaving accy on the first train out gets me to work(well, actually 2 miles from work with no regular bus service so I'd have to walk or taxi) at 10:45. Buses would need 3 changes and again it would be nearly 10:30 when I got to knutsford and teh same situation occurs.

I do as much as I can to be environmentally friendly. I use LPG(and have for ~ 7 years), I car share as much as I can (now on about my 8th different person over the last 10 years). I work compressed hours making a10 % saving on number of journeys and work from home on probably at least another 10%. Do the goverment reweard me in any way by giving me tax breaks? NOPE. because I have older cars converted( which in itself is environmentally friendly as majority of emissions for a cars end 2 end life are produced during manufacture and decomissioning) I don't even get the road tax discount.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I couldnt do without my car, i live too far out in the countryside, and our bus service only comes once every few hrs ( i think its every 3 hrs) and that only takes you to the next village where you then have to wait for another bus to take you to town and its a very small town, you then have to get another bus if you want to go to a bigger town, now that would take me all day and the buses are all different companies so you cant just buy an al day ticket, it would be an expensive do, not to mention all the bags to cart on and off buses

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

That is not quite true. Are you talking about what people wrongly call the booster seat law for kids under a certain height? There is a clause about being able to fit the seats in. Than again you can use the specially tested belts adjusters that I have mentioned before that take up no room on the seat.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

the law is that they must be on a booster seat unless one wont fit in.. we had this problem with my ex partner, trying to fit 2 baby seats and a booster was impossible but if you go to mothercare world they can advise you on which seats you can fit in..

Child Car Seats : The Law

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I gave up driving in 1995 and have used taxi's ever since, o it doesn't affect me

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

The law does not state booster seats - it says, and this is from your link

So my 6 year old uses one of these. They comply with the law and only cost £10 at Halfords. They would fit in your handbag to use in a friends car if needed. Mine have the ECE 44-03 labels fitted and a copy of the instructions is in the glove box just in case some smart arse copper thinks he knows the law and says he is not on a booster seat ;)

I wonder how many people have their kids sat on a booster seat from a previous child that is not marked as complying with ECE 44-03. They are breaking the law if they are and could be fined :eek:

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

No amount of money in the world would force me off the road. I need my car to get to and from the airport, at silly times of the day. Although as I am abroad at the moment it is parked at my parents house.

It's interesting to note, that our Government are not doing anything to bring the cost of Public Transport down either.
To give you an example. I am coming home next month for a week, I fly into Gatwick at 12.30pm, BA will fly me to Manchester for £50.
To get the train I have to get the express to Paddington, £15, get a tube to Euston, with cases, £5, get the Virgin train to Preston, £40. so the train will cost me £70 and take longer.
It is better for me to get the train as my Girl gets lost when driving to Manchester airport, so I rely on others to get me home.
Funny how BA can charge less than the train.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

this is also from from my link and the bit i was refering to

'There are three exceptions where there is not a child seat available. In each case the child MUST use the adult belt instead. They are -

1) in a licensed taxi or private hire vehicle;

2) if the child is travelling on a short distance for reason of unexpected necessity;

3) if there are two occupied child restraints in the rear which prevent the fitment of a third. ,

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

I used to do the 100 mile round trip to Knutsford, combined with at least once a fortnight driving down to London, sometimes to Nottingham (Boots HQ) and Leeds (Asda HQ). I drove a company BMW and got all my fuel paid for so really didn't need to worry about it, only the additional tax I had to pay.

Now, the furthest I drive is Burnley and I won't be doing that very often for much longer. A lot of the work I'll be doing soon will be based at Ossy Civic Theatre so I'll be walking there. I drive a Ford Ka (although it is 2L). In other words, over the last six years I've cut down an awful lot and about to do even more very soon.

However, would I give up my car? Absolutely NOT! For the little that I use it, it is very valuable and so would rather use it less than give it up altogether.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

Why on earth would you go to Paddington?:confused:

The train from Gatwick comes in at Victoria Station, and from there you'd simply get the Victoria line up to Euston.

Sense of direction not your strong point?:D

Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton & Stansted To Paddington

Gatwick Airport to Paddington
From Gatwick to Paddington the only realistic route is to travel by train to London Victoria, then get the Underground, local bus or a taxi direct to Paddington.

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

Okay so I got it wrong, I am used to going via Heathrow and the Heathrow Express goes from Paddington, now that BA have sold GB iarways the only Viable way for me to get home from Morocco is Marrakesh to Gatwick.

As to my sense of direction, thats why in a aircraft we have IRS's (Inertial Reference System, inbuilt Navagation systems, that use lasers)

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

No offence, I just found it odd, and a bit funny.

Guess I was lucky in having a career that involved creativity...and one that couldn't be done equally well by a machine.:D

Re: how much to give up your car?
 

None taken, I can naviagte its part of the Commercial License, however it is kinda hard to naviagte by Map when you are at 40,000 feet at night!
It is a shame that so much of Commercial Aviation is now down to automation, but like most things it's money and time, the Aircraft systems are more efficent than human, and of course the pax don't want to spill their G and T's.