Great minds think alike … well, almost. While walking the dog this morning
A dog, yesterday
…I thought I might blog about the cost of motoring. Imagine my surprise, then, on my return, to read Brian Clegg’s blog about halving his petrol spend by buying a smaller, less thirsty set of wheels. My question, then, is why not take things to their logical conclusion, and do what we’re contemplating chez Gee — which is to get rid of the car, reducing petrol spend to zero?
I drive one of these
A car, yesterday
It’s a Volvo 850 CD, 2.5-litres, 24-valve, with a load of guinea pigs horses under the hood. Ours is called Caroline. Caroline is 12 years old, has done 116,000 miles, and has been a fabulous family car. Being a Volvo, Caroline is very reliable. She is quite economical on fuel, provided you are going in a straight line at precisely 60mph. Otherwise she’s thirsty.
I’ve been totting up what Caroline costs me to own, annually
Fuel (at least) £1200
Tax £180
Insurance £336
So that’s getting on for £1800, and that’s even before servicing, MOT, wear and tear (and finding a place to park). Although Caroline is, as I’ve said, reliable, she does have to visit the garage from time to time. A new battery lightened my wallet by almost £100 the other day, and a service and MOT is looming at which I expect to get stung for a couple of new tyres and some work to the brakes. Even though I take Caroline to my local mechanic (much cheaper than a Volvo main dealer), I probably won’t see enough change out of £400 to blow my nose on.
So what is to be done? The market in secondhand cars has all but collapsed, so Caroline, once a luxury limo, is probably worth about sixpence. And keeping her will only get costlier, given that Gordon McBroon and his Evil Legions of the undead existentially challenged hate cars like Caroline, and the middle-class people who popular wisdom thinks drive them, and will try to tax her as much as possible.
One could argue that I should change to a model that emits less carbon, but I’d contend that when the real cost in energy and materials of making a new car (and scrapping the old one) is taken into account, keeping your old banger on the road has much less net effect on the environment.
This is why the Gees are seriously considering a radical option — selling Caroline and doing without a car completely.
As far as we can see, the pros outweight the cons.
Here is a snapshot of traveling life chez Gee. The kids live 100 yards from their school — so it’s less a school run than a school walk, and we live at the edge of a small but bustling seaside town, no more than twenty minutes walk from shops that offer all the human frame could reasonably require. Buses are plentiful and cheap, and run from the end of our street to destinations as diverse as Norwich, and … well, Norwich.
Commuting? When I go to the Nature office in London, it is by train, all the way (when it works).
Trips to the seaside? No problem – we live less than a mile easy amble from a blue-flag beach that’s beautiful and mostly deserted, even in high summer.
For all other needs — whether trips to gigs, or friends and relatives who live a little way off the beaten track — there are taxis. I’ve heard that cars for private hire constitute the second most important industry in Cromer (after tourism, presumably). There are loads of cab companies here, serving the needs of the substantial community of elderly people, as well as schoolchildren who might go to school in another town or village. Because people in North Norfolk are often rather poor, and population is thinly spread over an area not always well served by public transport, the need for taxis is great and rates are very competitive indeed.
Further afield? Norwich airport is just a 35-minute cab ride away, and from there you can be at Schiphol within the hour, and from Schiphol — the world.
Bottom line: at the moment it costs me between around £2000 and £3000 a year to own a car. Would it cost me as much, per year, to go everywhere by public transport or taxi? I haven’t totted the other side of the equation yet, but I strongly suspect that the answer would be ‘no’.
Henry, why is your pooch always a little out of focus?
She’s that kind of dog.
Back to the car: we use our Nissan Micra (name: Elsie – the registration no. begins LC03 … sorry)so little that we have to take it out from time to time to keep the battery from going flat. BUT we not only live well within the London transport area, but are of an age where we are entitled to Freedom Passes, which makes us in London Underground jargon “twirlies”, i.e. the folk who turn up at the station at 8.59 asking “Am I too early?” When we lived even in relatively urban West Yorkshire, we found a car pretty necessary. How folk in rural areas cut down on car use without severely restricting their activity is something I don’t know.
How folk in rural areas cut down on car use without severely restricting their activity is something I don’t know.
When it gets really rural … well, I don’t know. I think farm vehicles can run on cheap red diesel.
An important point about Cromer is that like many seaside towns, there is a great deal of social deprivation. Many people don’t have cars, and even if they did, they wouldn’t afford to do what people do when they’ve got to where they’re going, if you see what I mean. If I go the whole hog and sell the car, I’ll be less tempted to ‘just nip out to B&Q’ or whatever. Being without a car requires planning. One can get more or less wherever one wants, if you plan ahead. What I’d miss most about being car-less is the spontaneity of it.
Henry – I was kind of expecting when I did my ‘cut petrol in half’ thing to get someone saying ‘why don’t you use a bike/walk’. While it might work for chez Gee and (for example) my agent, who lives in central London doesn’t have a car because he really has no use for one, it would be hard in Clegg Towers.
Because we’re in a village, our children are bussed to a secondary school about 7 miles away. That’s fine, but for any activities we need to get them there – plus all their friends are spread over about a 15 mile radius.
Similarly, most shops and facilities are a minimum of 5 miles, which though possible on a bike isn’t very practical with 6 bags of supermarket shopping (or a dog to take to the vet’s).
(Actually it’s also not practical on a bike as I’ve never been able to turn right without falling off. When at Cambridge I mostly walked between lectures, but when I borrowed someone’s bike for an emergency dash I had to use cunningly designed routes with no right turns.)
I do walk to the village shop, but that has its inevitable limitations.
So for the moment, I’m in David’s ‘severely restricted’ mode if I go sans auto.
I see your predicament, Brian. When I asked myself what people in rural areas did before cars, the answer came very quickly — stay put.
Of course, that’s not really an option these days, as the case study of Clegg Towers shows. However, I asked my neighbours how they managed to get around. They moved to Cromer some years ago from central Birmingham, and they’ve never had a car. Their answer was clear and quick – they get lifts from their parents. Given that quite a few people in Cromer don’t have cars, neighbourliness comes to the fore and people are always giving one another lifts. And then there is the plethora of cheap local taxis, as I mentioned.
A trend neither of us has discussed is the increase in online shopping. In days gone by when nobody had cars, people would get most things delieverd to their doors. Has Tesco Online (and equivalents) replaced the butcher’s boy on his bike?
Actually, it’s amazing how much shopping you can fit on a bike if you use 2 panniers, a large backpack, and a bag or two over each handlebar… not enough for a whole family, maybe, but easily enough for 2 people and 2 cats for a week!
Bags over handlebars – I still have vivid memories of the world turned upside down milliseconds prior to impact.
The panniers get filled with all the heavy stuff and provide a very stabilising counterbalance to any handlebar-bag shenanigans. But yes, it’s not the best idea and is only used when the panniers and backpack are full. This tends to happen on weeks when we’ve run out of cat litter, a bag of which will fill up an entire pannier.
Cat litter! Use a cat flap.
The main road and the local raccoons are not good for kitties… no unsupervised outside time I’m afraid.
Oh and there are coyotes nearby too, although unlike the raccoons they don’t come into the garden. Or at least I’ve never seen one!
When I asked myself what people in rural areas did before cars, the answer came very quickly—stay put
Brings back memories of “how long are you staying, dear cousins – Oh a whole month!! How lovely” :) or they could use a horse I guess?
To share a little information about the carlessness. I grew up without a car. Granted that Stockholm has a good public transporation but when my parents and I went on longer trips (aka to the country side to spend Christmas or just anywhere closer to rural parts) we used taxis to no end. My mother and I sat down and calculated how much $$$ we spent on taxis per year and it was nowhere near the cost of a car (especially if you add in the decrease in value). Granted, I do think you need to plan a little more. And maybe you aren’t doing as many “joy rides” but nowadays I wonder how much is joy with gas prices to a million….
I agree with Cath on how much tihngs you can fit on a bike. Granted, during icy times I wasn’t as bravado to pack everything full…
but I’d contend that when the real cost in energy and materials of making a new car (and scrapping the old one) is taken into account, keeping your old banger on the road has much less net effect on the environment.
So many people ignore this, in their quest for greener-than-thou-ness. I would like to replace my 2001 Honda Accord, which is reliable and relatively fuel-efficient, with a hybrid Honda Civic, but friends of mine convinced me to wait a few years. They told me that 50% of a car’s lifetime energy consumption occurs before it is driven off the dealer’s lot. I have no worries about the disposal of the Accord 3-5 years from now (such vehicles and their parts are in high demand in Mexico, a 4-hour drive away), but the energy and materials required for the manufacture of a new hybrid car constitute a significant concern.
As an American, I’m pretty resistant to the idea of giving up a car altogether. Large cities in the Southwest are not designed for pedestrian or bicycle commuting, and using public transport would double the time of my commute. And with regards to my attitudes towards driving and cars, I am undeniably a product of my environment. In addition to the Accord, I own a behemoth red pick-up truck, which I bought used from some friends, and which I immediately named Smaug (an appropriate name in several ways). Now I only use the truck for ranch work, and to haul my horse trailer (I have two horses, which I keep on a friend’s ranch), but to be quite honest I really enjoy driving Smaug, and if he weren’t such a petrolpony-gobbling wyrm, I would drive him more often.
I don’t have a car, but I do have a motorcycle. It costs me less to pay for my fortnightly petrol than most small cars to fill up their tank. However, you do need reasonably good weather to make it work. But have you considered a scooter? You can wear decent clothing and a raincoat on one of them.
My next vehicle will be an electric moped.
There’s no need to feel too guilty about the electricity either – most of ours is hydroelectric!
I grew up near Boston without a car. A carless society would not have worked, but between mooching rides off of friends, public transport and taxis, we did pretty well. It’s certainly doable, even with kids, but it depends on your independence threshold.
Thanks, everyone, for all these encouraging thoughts. Mrs Gee and I have read them all, together (she’d like to put in a plug for National Express coaches, with whom she commutes to London for meetings, about once a fortnight. “The drivers are cheerful,” she says, " and get you there on time").
We’re still sleeping on the idea of going carless. When we consider things rationally, it becomes clear that our attachment to cars is almost entirely sentimental. But the huge and increasing cost just cannot be ignored. Is sentiment really worth between £2000 and £3000 a year?
Asa Karlstrom’s experience (sorry Asa – I do not know how to do the accents on your name) in Stockholm of using cabs as a cost-effective alternative to car trips resonates strongly with us here in Cromer.
Something that should be emphasized is that one doesn’t need to carry huge amounts of stuff on a bike or moped, simply because one doesn’t drive. When we go to our local supermarket and do the family shop, you can phone for a cab, then and there, which will take you and your shopping home for a mere £2.50. This is a service very well patronized by the large number of oldies who live in Cromer, but you don’t have to be a pensioner to use this service.
Watch this space…
Henry,
I’d recommend that anyone who drives a Volvo (‘drives’ is wrong somehow. ‘Manhandles’ is close. ‘Steers’ utterly wrong. Hang on, let me check my thesaurus…
screw, ram, sink, plunge, thrust, propel, knock
yeah, they’re pretty good
compel, prompt, precipitate; oblige, coerce, pressure, goad, spur, prod
not bad, either)
Let’s start again. The lot of anyone who sinks (hmm. Maybe not) a Volvo can only be improved by going car-less. Which is like careless but lacking an e.
Of course, I live in a country where my 3.5 litre V6 (with 120,000 miles on the clock) is not unusual, and people whine because a gallon of unleaded is 3 quid (70p/litre in those new-fangled units). In a straight line at 70 mph (which is actually over the speed limit) I get 33 miles to your English gallon.
And yet – my car being unreasonably economical for Australia – politicians pledge to keep the price of petrol low. As I’ve said elsewhere: it’s too late for Earth, let’s terraform Mars.
Richard’s unreasoning hatred of Volvos is not unique, sadly. They’re great cars. But as soon as I started driving one, other motorists became aggressive, I got the finger, and so on. They soon stopped complaining when I ran them over. Richard’s only teasing because I’m not prepared to drive to Australia to mow him down, and by the time he gets to the blogging conference I might have sold it. Watch out Grant, my other car is a
We were intent on getting a car when we moved to the UK from Australia 18 months ago. But when we first arrived we couldnt afford it so relied on public transport for a while. Then we realised that as I get the train to work (much faster) and hubby rides his bike or walks it really wasn’t necessary.
Yes, we get our groceries home delivered (and my Mum thinks that is scandalous) if doing a big shop, otherwise we just walk (and occasionally bring the trolley home if we get over-excited at the supermarket).
The main thing I miss is the spontenaity of being able to do something on one of the rare sunny days in this country. Public transport always has to be planned, particularly on a Sunday. And inevitably on a planned trip it will rain, after all, it IS England.
I’ve combatted the high gas prices by purchasing a bike and learning the bus routes. Fortunately, my university has a deal with the city bus company and allows us to ride for free. I’ve now cut my driving by about 80%. I suspect that such modes of transportation are going to be much more common in the near future.
Nuruddeen says about bikes and buses: I suspect that such modes of transportation are going to be much more common in the near future.
Tania says about public transport in the UK: Public transport always has to be planned, particularly on a Sunday.
The problem with the UK, being the Socialist Utopia that it is, McBroon and his oiks will do everything to penalize motorists while not doing enough to invest in any kind of public transport that might be considered a viable alternative to the car. Privatizing public transport (by the Tories) was a mistake in that it allowed monopolies to thrive. One of my reasons for thinking that I might get rid of the car is simply to state my defiance – that I simply refuse to be party to the slow subjugation of people by this dreadful government — especially when the people concerned are the intellectual middle classes, who seem to pay for everything while receiving nothing.
Richard, you don’t have a Ute? I’m gutted.
Henry, you and Brian are neck and neck on your comments to your twinnish blog posts. Pity there isn’t a way to yoke them together, they make interesting reading in juxtaposition.
Henry, no worries about the å ;) it’s life in foreign…
I think the one thing that can be very hard to get used to is the idea that you actually see the money disappear into a cab ride and from there it is easy to turn cheap and not go places. I mean, the cost of a car is maybe not as much in your mind every day? (apart from filling the tank?)
But as you said before, if you calculate it the cost per year is about £3000, which is quite a few cab rides a´ 2.50 and you might save money in the end?!
Good luck with the decision! I’m hoping to get used to not having a car when I move back to Europe – although I already feel lazy and am very comfortable with my lovely Ford Focus, small drinker of gas.
@Åsa – (hah! thank goodness for cut-and-paste!) you’re so right about seeing money disappear when you take a cab, and to imagine that journeys are ‘free’ when you drive your own car. This, however, is an illusion. A trip from Cromer to Norwich and back is 50 miles. If my car runs at 30 miles to the gallon (optimistic) or, in metric, about 6 miles to the liter, I use about 8 liters of petrol, which costs a little more than £8. That’s about the same as the bus fare (I’d have to confirm that with Mrs Gee), a little less than the train fare, and a lot less than the return cab fare, which would be about £50. But that ignores the substantial overheads (tax, insurance, repairs) and the costs of parking (£1.10 per hour). The worst thing about driving your own car is that many of these hidden costs still operate when the car is doing nothing. This leads to a kind of catch-22 – to get the best value from your car, you have to drive it — but the more you drive it, the more it costs. It’s a crazy old world out there.
@ Maxine – as for comments, it’s the quality that counts. Like my Volvo, I’d rather be built for comfort than speed, any day.
Henry, since when has miles to the litre been metric?
Richard, you don’t have a Ute? I’m gutted.
Does this mean it’s over, Maxine?
Don’t try to argue with her Richard, it’s clearly uteless.
Have they put tractor lanes in on the A11 now?
But “and” in Norwegian.
Have they put tractor lanes in on the A11 now?
Don’t even go there Bob. As ever, the main route in and out of East Anglia slows to a crawl at the single-lane traffic light at Elveden.
Henry, since when has miles to the litre been metric?
Sorry Brian. Ever since I moved to Norfolk I tend to work things out either in furlongs per fortnight, or groats per dozen scoville-perches quarts squared. It’s hard getting my head round metric units. I don’t think I’m alone, though. I have a feeling that large parts of the US military-industrial complex are from Norfolk, too.
Be thankful, Cath, that you make the blogging conference in August can not.
Pay for that you would, MMM.
There was nothing unreasoned about it, Henry. It was perfectly reasonable.
Richard, what has a Volvo-driver ever done to you?
No… don’t answer that.
Wopuld someone please enlighten this
selfish gas guzzling road hogging bastardVolvo driver – what’s an Ute? A google search reveals that it could be thisor this
or even this.
So, which is it? I think we should be told.
For a minute I thought it might be a
but I expect I misheard the link.
That blue thing with the Victoria plates.
Generally V8, 4 – 5 litres, rear wheel drive.
Considering they’re built with no weight at all over the rear wheels they’re complete shite to drive.
Considering they’re built with no weight at all over the rear wheels they’re complete shite to drive.
They must be appalling in the wet — almost as bad as a pair of worn-out crocs, eh?
Does the Ute have a woman-only fan club? Ute’R’us.
Sorry, it’s Saturday.
I’ve just noticed that this blog has got now attracted more comments of any I’ve written except one about irreligion. That got 46. Cars and driving — and the prospect of doing without both — are, therefore, things that people care strongly about. This gives rise to three further, random thoughts.
First, Mrs Gee and I have calculated that we’d need to spend around £200 a month on cabs and public transport for such expense to be equivalent to what I spend on the car. We’d have to work very hard to spend that much. This on its own suggests that keeping a car is uneconomic, at least as regards our needs;
Second, one can order everything one needs, yea, even bales of straw and sachets of bacteria for the yoghurt-maker (our latest toy), on the internet;
Third, that I read in a music magazine once that the oeuvre of Bruce Springsteen might have been slim indeed had he neither met a girl called Wendy, nor learned to drive.
Does the Ute have a woman-only fan club? Ute’R’us.
That joke is positively fallopian.
All good Australian crime fiction has a ute in it somwhere.
The Ute must be the updated version of the Holden Pickup (unless the two are
consanguineoussimultaneousthe same thing), as in this extract:- the girl of his dreams, the mata hari of Wagga Wagga, looking like a million dollars. "What kept you, -RichardBruce?" she said. Her teeth were like stars (they came out at night). She had the voice of a buzz-saw and the smoker’s cough of a ’57 Holden Pickup.From Picnic at Hanging Participle by Adelaide Brisbane, reproduced without permission.
Henry, you clearly never watched Neighbours.
Richard, my joke wasn’t as bad as Bob’s.
I put out an alert overnight about Utes to the Australian blogosphere, who have duly responded:
According to my sources the Holden Ute was born in 1951, and of course was manufactured here in good old Adelaide at the “Holden factory at Woodville”:
http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=42746
and here
Posted by: Kerrie | 15 June 2008 at 00:04
The origins of the Australian ute allegedly go back to 1932 in Geelong Victoria, at the Ford Factory
Is one version of the story – and that’s the one I remember by Grandfather explaining when I was a young child and we’d gone to pick up yet another ute in a long line of Holden, Ford and Vanguard utes for the farm.
The Deniliquin Ute Muster has to be seen to be believed :)
Posted by: Karen C | 15 June 2008 at 05:57
Sorry, make that
.. Holden factory at Woodville
Cath, nothing is as bad as Bob’s.
Mrs Gee and I have been continuing to ponder the question of whether to go carless, and mulling over everyone’s comments (for which many thanks) and we’d like to throw another factor into the mix, something that we can only summarize as quality of life.
Our lives are made easier and richer because we have access to personal transport. I guess this really boils down to convenience, but the facility of having one’s own vehicle on one’s doorstep does, I confess, lend a certain happiness and well-being.
We think that at the moment, this necessarily priceless feeling is probably still worth paying for, and that we’ll keep Caroline until she wears out. As I have explained before, keeping an old banger is more eco-friendly than scrapping it and buying a more economical car
- and in any case Caroline has virtually no value on the secondhand market and I am too mean to shell out for a new car. Whether the global economic climate, aggravated by Gordon McBroon and his Legions of the -UndeadExistentially Challenged, will change matters in the near future — well, only time will tell.On the other hand, I could be suffering from the endowment effect
I’m also carless, although I live in Toronto and I can take the bike lanes most of the way to/from work. I made the choice to live quite close to work, adding the cost of a vehicle to increase the price of the house that I could afford closer to downtown.
During the coldest part of the winter (when there’s snow on the ground, which is really only 2-3 months of the year) I take public transportation. Another house-location choice I made.
I rent cars for the weekends when I need to get away. With some forethought, I can usually get a rental for about $60 (CDN obviously) plus gas (which, depending on where I’m going is often more than the price of the rental).
Otherwise, I also belong to AutoShare: http://autoshare.com
I do most of my shopping on my bike. I pass approximately 5 grocery stores on my way home, so I tend to pick up a few things at a time so it all fits in my panniers. I pick up the larger things when I have a rental car or use my AutoShare car or when my mom visits.
The bike thing is great because it gives me the exercise I need, takes away the stress of public transportation, is often faster than any other transportation, far cheaper, and is in line with my environmental beliefs. I just wish my city councillor would stop advocating closing down bike lanes.
Congrats on thinking about ditching the car. But even if you just drive LESS you’re doing a good thing!
Congrats on thinking about ditching the car. But even if you just drive LESS you’re doing a good thing!
Thanks … but with petrol prices the way they are in the UK, driving less is not an option. We’re being forced into it.
Petrol prices are an issue everywhere and what I find interesting is how there is no correlation between price fluctuations and supply/demand change, but that the market and its investors are so reactive to their own paranoia and are willing to let that punish us all.
All this shouting about the price of a fuel that cannot be our energy future anyway? It’s a bit like getting upset about your own death – not going to alter reality one iota, mortality is our lot.
The problem is not the use of the domestic vehicle, it is the reliance on filthy fuel. Domestic vehicles that use clean fuel and have the smallest possible ecological footprint must for all our sakes become the goal of the automotive industry.
What can democracies do to help bring about such a change of heart? Tax or impose penalties on companies that do not demonstrate measures heading in the right direction…do we want to go there?
I guess pooling is one answer
also when you need to bring children to school
shots from the 2006 Edition of Bike New York
@ Carl: the market and its investors are so reactive to their own paranoia and are willing to let that punish us all. You’re so right. I think the only way to break that cycle is reduce our dependence on them and invest in nuclear and renewables. To his credit, the otherwise appalling Gordon McBroon and his Eldritch Army of the Pretenaturally Chronic
UndeadHazel BlearsExistentially Challenged have been making the appropriate noises recently.@ Massimo: those buggy things are great. I remember pulling the kids along in one of these when we vacationed at CenterParcs. The children sat in the back with a map and shouted directions in very clear diction, at the top of their voices. Now I know what rickshaw-wallahs must have felt like during the British Raj.
£20,000 bill for speeding row scientist
Several reports about this story in the papers and interchubes today.
A scientist has learned an expensive lesson after he fought a £60 speeding fine – only for it to end up costing him £20,000.
Rather interesting story, go check it out.
More under the fold=
I saw that story too: what worried me was this —
Philip Gwynne, of West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, said: ‘In speeding matters, it is the law of the land not the law of physics that matters.’
Yes, let’s put the laws of physics in their place! I ask you.
Mind you, it did seem to me from reading the account in Another Newspaper (not the Grauniad) that the man was trying it on a bit. Maybe he was not averse stretching the odd law or two beyond its proper intention.