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Does anyone struggle with car dependence?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I live in a very car dependent town.
I rarely go out and have no local friends.
I think there is a link between these two facts. I'm from a one car family. My mother works during the day and my father works in the evenings. This means my mum has to rush home with the car so that my dad can use it to drive to work. If my mum has to either work late or needs to drive in the evening my dad can get a bus to work but will need to be picked up at the end of his shift. I get the train to work. Its not really a location that can easily be driven to so I cant really justify buying a car when I pay loads in train fairs.
The only time I get to use the car to go out is if my dad is off sick or on leave. On one of these ocasions I went to an evening social with the intention of trying to get to know some local people. However upon talking to them and asking where they were from I realised that as far as I was concerned they weren't local. I'd need the car to go and see them. :banghead:
Public transport is pretty useless. Most of the buses only run during the day and stop in the late afternoon which is useless for going out in the evening. Walking and cycling are not good options many of these locations are separated by busy roads, duel carriageways etc. that you would be suicidal to try and cycle down.
I tried looking for more things nearer to me but the problem is that my town is so car dependent that even if something says "local group" or "meets in the local area" their definition of local assumes that you have access to a car.
Does anyone else struggle with this. I am especially curious about how people with medical conditions that mean they can have a driving license cope with living in car dependent towns.
I rarely go out and have no local friends.
I think there is a link between these two facts. I'm from a one car family. My mother works during the day and my father works in the evenings. This means my mum has to rush home with the car so that my dad can use it to drive to work. If my mum has to either work late or needs to drive in the evening my dad can get a bus to work but will need to be picked up at the end of his shift. I get the train to work. Its not really a location that can easily be driven to so I cant really justify buying a car when I pay loads in train fairs.
The only time I get to use the car to go out is if my dad is off sick or on leave. On one of these ocasions I went to an evening social with the intention of trying to get to know some local people. However upon talking to them and asking where they were from I realised that as far as I was concerned they weren't local. I'd need the car to go and see them. :banghead:
Public transport is pretty useless. Most of the buses only run during the day and stop in the late afternoon which is useless for going out in the evening. Walking and cycling are not good options many of these locations are separated by busy roads, duel carriageways etc. that you would be suicidal to try and cycle down.
I tried looking for more things nearer to me but the problem is that my town is so car dependent that even if something says "local group" or "meets in the local area" their definition of local assumes that you have access to a car.
Does anyone else struggle with this. I am especially curious about how people with medical conditions that mean they can have a driving license cope with living in car dependent towns.
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
I think you are making excuses for things, rather than taking the bull by the horns and doing something about it. Buses are not always the best, but IME towns are either small enough to walk everywhere or there is some semblance of bus and rail network until the early evening at the very least. There are always taxis for the times when the last bus is too early and you want to go out and have a good time.
You might have to walk a bit further to get a bus, and the buses might only be hourly, and the last bus might be earlier than you'd like, but they tend to exist.
There are plenty of people who think that where I currently live makes you car dependant, and as a driver in the area I'd go along with that. Until I think back to before I could drive. And actually I got on just fine.
I had a bike, I had a helmet, I had a hivi jacket and I cycled. I walked places. I got the bus, I got the train, and I used taxi's. I can hear the comment coming now that taxi's are expensive, but when you compare them to owning a car - suddenly they look pretty cheap.
Car dependance is as much about attitude and any geographical and logistical details. It might be that 'local' stuff is only accessible by car (I'd have my doubts) but that something further away is actually near a bus route/rail station.
It's something I personally got used to. I guess it was easier for me than it was my dad because I didn't lose my licence after driving for 26 years.
TBH unless you live in complete wilderness with zero public transport it's not really a decent excuse.
Also you can pick up a little run around for relatively little money these days....why not do that?
My town does have buses but they are pretty useless. There are half a dozen different bus companies that operate independently of each other. This leads to the ridiculous situation where two buses will operate a similar route while other areas don't have any buses going near them.
I am prepared to walk to the bus station or walk to a social but when a journey would take 3 hours on public transport its ridiculous as is a bus ride and then an hours walk in the dark beside a busy road with no pavement. Buses that finish in the early evening are no good for socials that finish in the late evening. I cant be paying for a taxi ride every week.
I cant justify buying a car either right now. Yes I might be able to pick up a car cheaply but I cant pay for both my rail fair and the costs of running a car I would only use for leisure.
I have on many ocasions looked at potential socials I could go to and spent ages on google maps and bus websites trying to figure out how I could get there only to draw a blank. Its a weird situation where you can get to London in less than an hour but getting to the other side of town is mission impossible.
It sucks. I found a group that had a lot of their meetings in an area not far from me and then I found a bus that would take me to an area. I felt that I had finally made some much awaited progress with my lack of local friends problem. However when I downloaded the timetable and found that it stopped running at 5.30pm I was really pissed off.
It's the same where I live. At some point, there were buses that went into town, railway station, one of the major hospitals and one of the local colleges. Now, they just go into town.
why would you need a car and pay for rail fare?
I still think if you were as desperate as you claim to be to meet new people you would make what i consider to be a pretty small financial sacrifice of either paying for odd taxi ride or buying an old banger and running it.
Having a life costs.....
You don't want a car and you don't want to use public transport. Well, that kind of restricts your options a little, non? You cannot complain about isolation whilst you don't take any steps to improve that situation, which is in your control.
NB I don't subscribe to the view that public transport is a decent option everywhere. It certainly isn't in my neck of the woods. Hence why I drive everywhere.
:yes: A car doesn't need to cost thousands - especially if you don't use it that often.
You can go and meet them - either by getting a car or using what public transport there is...
As I've quit facebook I'll start doing this here.
Neddy likes this :yes:
If the issue troubles you, and you want some social interaction then find a way to make it happen.
Cars do not cost you thousands to run, public transport will get you wherever you want - albeit with greater inconvenience - you already get the train to work and your Dad seems to have access to a bus.
I'm not saying it will be easy for you, but if something is important then you find a way to make it happen. Life doesn't just hand solutions to you on a plate.
My Dad can get a bus to work but either I or my mum has to pick him up at the end of his shift.
Public transport cant get me wherever I want. Most of these socials are in pubs that are not anywhere near the bus routes. By the time I have walked to many of these places after getting home from work the social will be long over.
A social life is important but not enough say to make me put myself at risk by walking down a busy road at night with no pavement.
The problem is that I think they want me to be saving up for a deposit for a mortgage. Like thats ever going to happen. My parents don't really get my situation as neither of them socialize much.
That said I think I will look into find a cheap car and bugeting so I can afford it.
No, but it might stop you looking for excuses and not taking positive action to resolve the situation yourself.
I live in the middle of nowhere, the bus links are poor (it's at least 30 minutes to the nearest town) and there isn't a train within 5 miles. I could moan about that. I don't. I bought a car.
Around here the buses are better but again I have to walk places. The small towns don't have evening town services but they do run down main roads. People in places like Hexham manage to have a social life so I don't see why you can't. It comes down to motivation.
There is always something positive which can be done, you just need the willpower to make it happen.
You can pick up a car relatively cheaply these days - talk to dealers, trade-ins cars are sold off cheaply (for example) - insurance isn't that expensive and you only use the fuel you want to use. My car costs me about £300 per month to run, including fuel (including the fact I use it for business mileage), tax and insurance. The bus would cost me twice that amount and still not get me where I want to be...