My adorable friend Louise is getting rid of her car. One of the many things that I love about Louise is that she is up-front, honest and open - she has announced on her blog that she is doing this in order to save some pennies. She will have done her maths and I'm sure she'll be more than happy to comment on how much money she hopes to save by no longer running a car (and that will save me doing the maths and coming to the wrong answer about how much we might save if were we to become car-less!!).
I'd never thought of ditching our car - that is until I read Louise's blog yesterday. What a fantastic idea. Here is what we could gain by losing the blasted thing:
1) more money
2) a cleaner environment
3) a healthier life-style
4) one less thing to clean (or neglect)
The car is useful at holiday time - but then we could hire one (and a bigger one than we currently have so that we could actually fit our luggage into it).
The car is also useful when it is raining and you need to go somewhere - but it's also more dangerous to drive in the rain and, people seem to forget this, rain is only water. No-one's ever dissolved through standing out in it, certainly not en-route to the nearest bus stop anyway.
To become without a car now, with two young children and a life-style that has become rather too car-dependent (or seemingly so), would be a challenge. But not an insurmountable one. I'd just need to leave the house earlier to get to where I needed to be, that's all.
Imagine a world with no cars ........ fantastic. (It'd probably put Jeremy Clarkson out of a job too - weyhey!)
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7 comments:
I find your last reason one of the most compelling (just sitting back and waiting to see if my dh comments on it too...)
It's kind of scary to think about, but part of me (not least the part that is still rather scared of driving...) would love to ditch it.
And if we're ditching things we can't live without (or think we can't) can I get rid of the telly too?
Btw - the living room is CLEAN and (more or less) TIDY! You have to get in your car tomorrow!
Yes please - let's ditch the telly too. But let's wish we'd never bought it in the first place because that way we'd have saved sooo much money. And (not sure whether it was Spike Milligan or Roald Dahl or someone else who put this thought into my head) but imagine the number of books you could have bought in its place and how lovely those books would look on a shelf, in its place!!
And if we didn't have a telly, we wouldn't be so reliant on CBeebies (that's the only thing that scares me about getting rid of it - somehow I think even Ruth would spot that a poster of Tinky Winky isn't quite the same...)
Gosh! I've provoked a post on someone elses blog!
You are right about the telly, but I think I would find that much harder.
My brother & Sister in law in London have no car and are glad. Of course, they also have no children to tote, so the hands can fill with groceries and whatnot. But they wouldn't have one.
In the States (at least in this one) our public transport system is nowhere near London's... car-free would mean staying home all the time... and so I envy them. As the price of gasoline climbs and climbs (to get more like Europe's) I think we in the US need to start thinking more creatively.
Now pardon me as I go drive somewhere in the minivan... Sigh...
Funnily enough, the thought of not having a car, even with four young children, has not fazed me at all and yet the response from friends locally has generally been one of pure horror and disbelief.
In the days of Tesco.com, the weekly shop couldn't be easier, 20 minutes on a Saturday morning online and 10 minutes unpacking on a Tuesday morning when the little 'man-in-the-van' kindly delivers the bags to my kitchen. More stress free than a mad hour behind the wheels of a trolley with a mind of it's own amongst ignorant shoppers! I've never had to use the car for the school run, we walk and the bus to town passes my door reasonably regularly, if I want to go further afield than the town 3 miles away!
So, even living in the wilds of Scotland as we do, it's easy and I love it! In fact, it's probably easier here than in a city.
We've been without a tv for about a year or so. We gave up because we didn't watch it enough to make it worth paying the licence fee. But I think we're going to go back to having a tv licence. Matt misses watching the news and there are a few programmes I'd really like to be able to watch. I've liked not having a tv but we do miss it a bit.
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