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Children who get struck down by cars, who would otherwise safely play in the streets before car monopolies enforced ownership of cars onto society.
Those in the "third world" who suffer the consequences of climate change the most.
Those a few years in the future who will have to suffer the ensuing climate holocaust.
Ethnic minorities whose houses were demolished and its occupants forcibly relocated to make way for motorways and wider streets for white folk to drive along.
The immunocompromised whose lives are cut short by exhausts.
Those who want anything else than to be forced to do all of the labour and pay all of the costs for transit that society should instead be doing in the form of public transit. The constant stream of dead the system of car ownership causes, where car fatalities are so common that they're covered in low-importance traffic news instead of actual news, where the sad part isn't that someone died but that entitled car owners will be 5 minutes late to their destination.
If you take a second to think outside of the social box where cars are taken as fact and instead educate yourself, you'll find it's quite dystopian. Are you willing to think?
Children who get struck down by cars, who would otherwise safely play in the streets before car monopolies enforced ownership of cars onto society.
Those in the "third world" who suffer the consequences of climate change the most.
Those a few years in the future who will have to suffer the ensuing climate holocaust.
Ethnic minorities whose houses were demolished and its occupants forcibly relocated to make way for motorways and wider streets for white folk to drive along.
The immunocompromised whose lives are cut short by exhausts.
Those who want anything else than to be forced to do all of the labour and pay all of the costs for transit that society should instead be doing in the form of public transit. The constant stream of dead the system of car ownership causes, where car fatalities are so common that they're covered in low-importance traffic news instead of actual news, where the sad part isn't that someone died but that entitled car owners will be 5 minutes late to their destination.
If you take a second to think outside of the social box where cars are taken as fact and instead educate yourself, you'll find it's quite dystopian. Are you willing to think?
Sounds like the Amish community would be the best for you?
I don't think car monopolies enforced ownership of cars onto society - that was people's desire to escape the tyranny of public transit and have a freer life going where they wanted, when they wanted and with whom they wanted. As fewer and fewer people wanted to use public transit it started to shrink - but I think the loss of trade came long before the substantive reduction in service. Of course once activities that can only practicably be done by cars became increasing mainstream, those who did not/cannot become marginalised, but that is not really a reason to prevent the majority from using them.
Ethnic minorities love their cars also.
Cars are fact, it is unthinkable to be returning to the 'halcyon days' without them, because once the genie has been let out of the bottle it is never going back.
I'm impressed how unable you are to implement critical thinking. In minds like yours, there are no statistics, facts or reality at all, only fetishised cultural objects (in the religious sense)
Cars are, in minds like this, immutable objects as correct and true as the word of God, and no amount of exposure to reality can change them. Indoctrination is so powerful...
The Amish part is the one that gets me. It's cars or nothing! We had no civilisation or transport before cars. Cars came along, like Jesus, and rescued us from savagery! Hilarious.
What a wonderful fiction you must live in!
I'm impressed how unable you are to implement critical thinking. In minds like yours, there are no statistics, facts or reality at all, only fetishised cultural objects (in the religious sense)
Cars are, in minds like this, immutable objects as correct and true as the word of God, and no amount of exposure to reality can change them. Indoctrination is so powerful...
The Amish part is the one that gets me. It's cars or nothing! We had no civilisation or transport before cars. Cars came along, like Jesus, and rescued us from savagery! Hilarious.
What a wonderful fiction you must live in!
I don't need any statistics; only need to look around at the reality. Society has moved on from the time when there was no cars, it has moulded itself around the car, and it shows no sign of going back. I look around the world and only see the same trend - some countries more advanced in the trend than us, and some behind in varying degrees - but, first world, third world, all in the same general direction. (Amish excepted, of course!). Society is unlikely to go back to the civilisation or transport options before cars - the genie of personal motorised transport is out of the bottle and not going back in. Maybe when transportation Star Trek style is developed then cars will be redundant......
Sounds like the Amish community would be the best for you?
I don't think car monopolies enforced ownership of cars onto society - that was people's desire to escape the tyranny of public transit and have a freer life going where they wanted, when they wanted and with whom they wanted. As fewer and fewer people wanted to use public transit it started to shrink - but I think the loss of trade came long before the substantive reduction in service. Of course once activities that can only practicably be done by cars became increasing mainstream, those who did not/cannot become marginalised, but that is not really a reason to prevent the majority from using them.
Ethnic minorities love their cars also.
Cars are fact, it is unthinkable to be returning to the 'halcyon days' without them, because once the genie has been let out of the bottle it is never going back.
It's possible to want fewer cars without wanting zero cars, it's not uncommon for roads to have seen 25% growth in car use since 2000.
Shrinking back to nearly that sort of level (or even still being halfway between the two) would still allow the vast majority of households to use a car as that would be a 10% to 20% fall in car use.
A lot of travel is up to a few miles, so could be walkable or cycleable by a lot of people which could make a significant part to play to reach that figure.
Even a 5% fall would have a significant impact.
To illustrate this, the daily variation in traffic is 2%, so those days it takes you longer for no reason it's 2% higher than those days where it takes your much quicker for no reason. Therefore, a 5% fall would be noticeable better.
If we get to a 10% reduction, all travel would be like travelling during the school holidays.
Locally to me the car ownership rate for the District Council is significantly higher than the car ownership rate for the county as a whole (the county rate happens to be the average for the country), to the point where around where if the car ownership rate could be scaled back to that of the county there could be an extra 25% more homes built and not change the number of cars within the District!
Not really in the UK (British Leyland weren't exactly organised enough to do it) but General Motors were incredibly powerful in the US. They bought up streetcar lines with the very intention of running them down.
So are you *seriously* trying to state that a road with measures such as chicanes (forcing vehicles into a head-on course) or uneven surfaces (very hazardous for cyclists) is safer than a straight wide road with good sight lines?
At my previous address, I cycled through two chicanes every day. It was 50/50 whether a vehicle would give way when required. Having a bypass lane for bikes is no good because someone will park on it. Parking enforcement in Cardiff is non existent as far as I can tell.
I don't think anyone is arguing cars aren't of benefit to society anyway. The arguments really are just about too many cars in the larger urban areas, and less efficient or less safe areas where lots of people live as a result. Private cars and taxis are going to retain their important roles come what may.
I'm impressed how unable you are to implement critical thinking. In minds like yours, there are no statistics, facts or reality at all, only fetishised cultural objects (in the religious sense)
Cars are, in minds like this, immutable objects as correct and true as the word of God, and no amount of exposure to reality can change them. Indoctrination is so powerful...
The Amish part is the one that gets me. It's cars or nothing! We had no civilisation or transport before cars. Cars came along, like Jesus, and rescued us from savagery! Hilarious.
What a wonderful fiction you must live in!
Shrinking back to nearly that sort of level (or even still being halfway between the two) would still allow the vast majority of households to use a car as that would be a 10% to 20% fall in car use.
Of course it is possible, but is it really practicable and feasible? Along with the growth has gone a huge amount of societal change enabled by such car use - 50 to 90 mile cross country commutes (a number of my neighbours do commutes which are virtually impossible by public transport, to all sorts of diverse places), out of town shopping centres, business parks, industrial estates, leisure complexes, parental choice school places, home deliveries, rural housing estates etc etc 24 years change is the equivalent of 1956 to 1980, which saw a massive drop in public transport usage and transfer to car travel. There is as much chance of turning back the last 24 years as there was in 1980. Not a hope. People's lives have completely changed, and car use has enabled this.
A lot of travel is up to a few miles, so could be walkable or cycleable by a lot of people which could make a significant part to play to reach that figure.
It is, but the time, effort and life organisation required compared to making the journeys by car means that few are going to voluntarily do it, and vote for any politicians who are going to try forcibly either.
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Not really in the UK (British Leyland weren't exactly organised enough to do it) but General Motors were incredibly powerful in the US. They bought up streetcar lines with the very intention of running them down.
Of course it is possible, but is it really practicable and feasible? Along with the growth has gone a huge amount of societal change enabled by such car use - 50 to 90 mile cross country commutes (a number of my neighbours do commutes which are virtually impossible by public transport, to all sorts of diverse places), out of town shopping centres, business parks, industrial estates, leisure complexes, parental choice school places, home deliveries, rural housing estates etc etc 24 years change is the equivalent of 1956 to 1980, which saw a massive drop in public transport usage and transfer to car travel. There is as much chance of turning back the last 24 years as there was in 1980. Not a hope. People's lives have completely changed, and car use has enabled this.
Or looking at it the other way, car dependency has forced many people to change their lives. Less car dependency would mean we would live in higher density towns and cities which make public and active transport more viable and efficient. How many people really want to drive 90 miles to work? Clearly there are massive benefits from cars from the individual point of view, but the overall effect on society and the environment is a big price to pay.
Or looking at it the other way, car dependency has forced many people to change their lives. Less car dependency would mean we would live in higher density towns and cities which make public and active transport more viable and efficient.
But we are where we are. There is no opportunity to redesign/start from scratch, nor the practical ability to regulate people's lives to comply with plans. The car you drive is often an extension of your personality (even in a passive way) and a status symbol, almost like nothing else in our culture. Only a seismic change is going to alter this.
How many people really want to drive 90 miles to work? Clearly there are massive benefits from cars from the individual point of view, but the overall effect on society and the environment is a big price to pay.
It is often a lifestyle choice to drive those 90 miles or whatever. Better job, more fulfilling or more money. Partners job in this town, children settled in school with good Ofsted rating. Could move house but only with massive disruption (and partner doing reverse commute or looking for another job, got to find new friends etc). Cars have enabled this sort of thing to happen. 50 years ago society was a completely different place and there is no point trying to turn back the clock. There have been prices to pay, but the majority of people in society have been happy to go along with it.
Have they? I wonder how many people have ever even given it much thought. We have become very brainwashed into thinking in specific ways about how cars are the solution - how often do you hear people moaning about having to pay to park (I do this too), when rationally we don't expect to store anything else of ours for nothing. It's the second most expensive purchase most people ever make but tell them they have spend £2 an hour to leave it somewhere...
Have they? I wonder how many people have ever even given it much thought. We have become very brainwashed into thinking in specific ways about how cars are the solution - how often do you hear people moaning about having to pay to park (I do this too), when rationally we don't expect to store anything else of ours for nothing. It's the second most expensive purchase most people ever make but tell them they have spend £2 an hour to leave it somewhere...
Well yes, but then people will moan about the price of anything to do with cars* ('everything should be free, shouldn't it'?), the purchase price, the fuel, the tyres, the maintenance, the parking - but telling them to use public transport instead and they'll moan far, far more. * and most other things - all want to be financially better off than they are now.
I am sure most never give the costs (on society) much thought - the fact they don't means they are not unhappy about it, ergo their silence and continued use implies a certain amount of happiness in tolerating it.
I'm impressed how unable you are to implement critical thinking. In minds like yours, there are no statistics, facts or reality at all, only fetishised cultural objects (in the religious sense)
Cars are, in minds like this, immutable objects as correct and true as the word of God, and no amount of exposure to reality can change them. Indoctrination is so powerful...
The Amish part is the one that gets me. It's cars or nothing! We had no civilisation or transport before cars. Cars came along, like Jesus, and rescued us from savagery! Hilarious.
What a wonderful fiction you must live in!
At the end of the day, the main predecessor to the car (the pre-1960s railway network) was gone by the time most of were born, and quite simply isn’t isn’t going to come back.
One can either accept that and make the most of the opportunities that car ownership allows, or moan about cars and miss out on all those opportunities. I know which choice I will continue to make, if you wish to make the other one then good luck to you - but please don’t try to then make life difficult for people.
I do agree with the posts here expressing the view that a reduction in car use would certainly be desirable though. It’s cringeworthy just how lazy some people are, and certainly in some cases I can see the point about some lifestyles being over-reliant on the car. Just this morning I saw one of my neighbours drive 500 yards to the local post office, I find that fairly grotesque to be honest, and certainly the BMI that comes with it!
One can either accept that and make the most of the opportunities that car ownership allows, or moan about cars and miss out on all those opportunities. I know which choice I will continue to make, if you wish to make the other one then good luck to you - but please don’t try to then make life difficult for people.
The thing is that mass car ownership already does make things difficult for people in urban areas. That's why urban areas are pushing back and making things difficult for car owners by cutting the availability of surface parking (a very unproductive use of valuable land), charging tolls at peak times, restricting the use of polluting vehicles and turning entire streets over to pedestrians.
The thing is that mass car ownership already does make things difficult for people in urban areas. That's why urban areas are pushing back and making things difficult for car owners by cutting the availability of surface parking (a very unproductive use of valuable land), charging tolls at peak times, restricting the use of polluting vehicles and turning entire streets over to pedestrians.
My view is what's going in is subtly different to what you say is happening. How I see it is that people want to reduce car use by *others* in "their" area. This isn't the same thing as attempting to hang back on overall car use a bit.
Take London, I suspect a pretty high proportion of car journeys are carried out by people who live within London, or for the benefit of people who live within London in some way (e.g. providing services to them).
Certainly for every one of "I'd like quiet streets so I can walk with clean air" I bet there's plenty of "I want quieter streets so the road is emptier when I want to drive out".
Just thinking of my town, a hell of a lot of journeys / congestion are caused by people who can't be bothered to walk a couple of hundred yards from a car park, but instead want to part directly in front of the place they wish to visit.
I'm afraid I'm very cynical in respect of peoples motives.
At the end of the day, the main predecessor to the car (the pre-1960s railway network) was gone by the time most of were born, and quite simply isn’t isn’t going to come back.
One can either accept that and make the most of the opportunities that car ownership allows, or moan about cars and miss out on all those opportunities.
Isn't this just car fetishism again? Ignoring the facts of the situation to essentially say "cars are as inevitable as god". Please try thinking outside of the social box manufactured around you.
Fewer & slower cars = fewer car deaths. You want the opposite of that. In what way is killing more people to give you a slight convenience and make you happier not making life difficult for the many people who have no choice but to suffer from the social, environmental and health damage cars cause? You're the one making life difficult for people, by wanting them dead for your convenience.
That's what the facts and figures imply, anyway.
Is it easy for you to ignore those deaths?
It isn't for me.
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Certainly for every one of "I'd like quiet streets so I can walk with clean air" I bet there's plenty of "I want quieter streets so the road is emptier when I want to drive out".
Everyone wins when there are fewer cars. I don't see why people take it as an attack on them and their big four-wheeled toy. Imagine how great it would be if the only people driving were the people who WANTED to drive. Imagine if 90% of cars were made redundant by walkable cities, bare-minimum public transit and incentives not to drive!! You could sail down empty roads to your heart's content! Why are we fighting? You already want what we want.
My thoughts on the original question are...it depends.
Speed limits should be appropriate for their locations and in some areas with 20mph limits they are too high and in others too low. The concept of blanket limits lacks the nuance to be truly effective in my view. I think the main reason that so many limits are not followed is that they lack credibility. I think the concept of variable speed limits in urban areas is also valid as roads at 3am in the holidays can be very different to when schools are emptying
Thing is nuance creates a lot of opportunity for misunderstanding and misinterpretation, which is especially problematic when speed cameras and fines get involved. I personally do not see the issue with blanket speed limits.
My thoughts on the original question are...it depends.
Speed limits should be appropriate for their locations and in some areas with 20mph limits they are too high and in others too low. The concept of blanket limits lacks the nuance to be truly effective in my view. I think the main reason that so many limits are not followed is that they lack credibility. I think the concept of variable speed limits in urban areas is also valid as roads at 3am in the holidays can be very different to when schools are emptying
Having recently driven the length of the A470, one thing that stands out is how inconsistent the limits are. The limit through the villages can be 20, 30 or 40. Some drop from 60 straight to 20, others have a bit of 30 or 40 which then reduces further to 20. Who decides these limits? What criteria do they use?
Of course it is possible, but is it really practicable and feasible? Along with the growth has gone a huge amount of societal change enabled by such car use - 50 to 90 mile cross country commutes (a number of my neighbours do commutes which are virtually impossible by public transport, to all sorts of diverse places), out of town shopping centres, business parks, industrial estates, leisure complexes, parental choice school places, home deliveries, rural housing estates etc etc 24 years change is the equivalent of 1956 to 1980, which saw a massive drop in public transport usage and transfer to car travel. There is as much chance of turning back the last 24 years as there was in 1980. Not a hope. People's lives have completely changed, and car use has enabled this.
It is, but the time, effort and life organisation required compared to making the journeys by car means that few are going to voluntarily do it, and vote for any politicians who are going to try forcibly either.
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Yes, but I think it was to increase/encourage their diesel bus sales, as much as anything?
The question I would ask is how much actual benefit works people get from driving 30 miles each way for a job?
In a rural location, maybe, but given that's 15% is the population, that's not all that typical.
Take for example someone working full time on minimum wage and therefore earning £22,000, their take home pay would be £19,360.
To drive those sorts of distance to cover the average cost of car ownership but with an increased fuel cost to allow for 15p/mile for the work only based milage (i.e. no other car use) they would have to have a take home salary if £24,360, so their gross pay would have to be £28,945.
It gets worse when you get to higher rate taxes, someone earning £50,500 would have a take home pay of £39,850, have take home pay of £44,850 they would need to earn £59,125.
However I suspect that there's an element of high house prices coming into play, in that if house prices were more closer linked to wages then fewer people would feel that they would need to travel so far.
That so many people do perhaps indicates that there is benefit. Apart from jobs at the lower end of the pay scale, I don't think people just do any old work to suit their life financial model. Plenty of people earn more than that, particularly joint income. I travel 20 miles for my job (no comparable available job in my town, and I don't want to change industry or house) and that takes two hours in each direction by public transport. 25 min walk to bus stop, one hour in bus, 35 min walk or wait for bus connection. Could go by train, but that involves the same length of walking and an intermediate change, still with a comparable journey time with more uncertainty, and cost more. With a car, I could do a 90 mile commute in that time (the town I live in is particularly well sited for the motorway/main road network, which is probably why so many neighbours can do such commuting ). I could go by car much faster, and fortunately I can mitigate the 25% of my waking hours spent public transport commuting by mainly working from home.
I live in this town because my job was located here, a 25 min walk from the house. But things have changed. I could look for a job I don't want to do locally, or I could move house (but they are more expensive in my employment town, I'd be away from our friends established in the 24 years I've lived here, and my wife would have to reverse commute or change jobs too).
I can quite see why people would do long distance commuting journeys by car, even though personally I would really dislike doing it.
That so many people do perhaps indicates that there is benefit. Apart from jobs at the lower end of the pay scale, I don't think people just do any old work to suit their life financial model. Plenty of people earn more than that, particularly joint income. I travel 20 miles for my job (no comparable available job in my town, and I don't want to change industry or house) and that takes two hours in each direction by public transport. 25 min walk to bus stop, one hour in bus, 35 min walk or wait for bus connection. Could go by train, but that involves the same length of walking and an intermediate change, still with a comparable journey time with more uncertainty, and cost more. With a car, I could do a 90 mile commute in that time (the town I live in is particularly well sited for the motorway/main road network, which is probably why so many neighbours can do such commuting ). I could go by car much faster, and fortunately I can mitigate the 25% of my waking hours spent public transport commuting by mainly working from home.
I live in this town because my job was located here, a 25 min walk from the house. But things have changed. I could look for a job I don't want to do locally, or I could move house (but they are more expensive in my employment town, I'd be away from our friends established in the 24 years I've lived here, and my wife would have to reverse commute or change jobs too).
I can quite see why people would do long distance commuting journeys by car, even though personally I would really dislike doing it.
I understand all of that, however in your example you're still only travelling 20 miles each way. Whilst there's going to be some who could say the same for 30 mile trips, the journey time is likely to be longer (especially given you've said that the place you live is well connected, so for some it could be more that 50% more time than it takes you).
Also it's worth noting that I was replying to a post about people doing 50 to 90 mile trips (it wasn't clear if this was each way or round trip) if those are one way distances that's a lot of time driving, even averaging 60mph that's a minute per mile (so 50 to 90 minutes) and it's very hard to go that average speed.
Allowing for small delays, 50 miles each way would likely mean planning for that trip to take 90 minutes (maybe 75 minutes off peak), or around 14 hours a week or 23 days a year.
That's a lot of free time lost. Now whilst it's in small bites, you are more likely to be able to work compressed hours closer to home (I have a friend who's company offers everyone the Friday afternoon off as they all work a little more Monday to Thursday.
I understand all of that, however in your example you're still only travelling 20 miles each way. Whilst there's going to be some who could say the same for 30 mile trips, the journey time is likely to be longer (especially given you've said that the place you live is well connected, so for some it could be more that 50% more time than it takes you).
Also it's worth noting that I was replying to a post about people doing 50 to 90 mile trips (it wasn't clear if this was each way or round trip) if those are one way distances that's a lot of time driving, even averaging 60mph that's a minute per mile (so 50 to 90 minutes) and it's very hard to go that average speed.
Allowing for small delays, 50 miles each way would likely mean planning for that trip to take 90 minutes (maybe 75 minutes off peak), or around 14 hours a week or 23 days a year.
That's a lot of free time lost. Now whilst it's in small bites, you are more likely to be able to work compressed hours closer to home (I have a friend who's company offers everyone the Friday afternoon off as they all work a little more Monday to Thursday.
Maybe in your neck of the woods such length of trips are not practical on your roads, although I suspect there is much more going on than you realise! A few examples that I know people commuting daily (or near daily) by car - Rugby to Ely, Mansfield to Northampton, Coventry to Spalding, Coventry to Maidenhead. Try doing any of them by public transport in two hours each way, especially when your residence and the employment is not near either railway station! Some of them are hard enough to go there and back in a day, let alone do a day's work in between! I would suggest this is just the tip of the iceberg, and people will go to these lengths to commute for the job they want, or feel able to do.
50 years ago no-one would have dreamed of doing such a thing - however society has changed: partners working/children in particular schools etc, plus of course roads and cars capable of this being a practicality, even if you or I wouldn't like it much!
I understand all of that, however in your example you're still only travelling 20 miles each way. Whilst there's going to be some who could say the same for 30 mile trips, the journey time is likely to be longer (especially given you've said that the place you live is well connected, so for some it could be more that 50% more time than it takes you).
Also it's worth noting that I was replying to a post about people doing 50 to 90 mile trips (it wasn't clear if this was each way or round trip) if those are one way distances that's a lot of time driving, even averaging 60mph that's a minute per mile (so 50 to 90 minutes) and it's very hard to go that average speed.
Allowing for small delays, 50 miles each way would likely mean planning for that trip to take 90 minutes (maybe 75 minutes off peak), or around 14 hours a week or 23 days a year.
That's a lot of free time lost. Now whilst it's in small bites, you are more likely to be able to work compressed hours closer to home (I have a friend who's company offers everyone the Friday afternoon off as they all work a little more Monday to Thursday.
My commute is 29 miles each way, predominantly 70mph roads and takes me about *33 minutes. *(depending on traffic levels and how many traffic lights I get held at). To do it by train (and ignoring the fact the services don't run when I need them) takes 1hr25m including walking either end so why would I choose that option?
It gets worse when you get to higher rate taxes, someone earning £50,500 would have a take home pay of £39,850, have take home pay of £44,850 they would need to earn £59,125.
The cost of commuting is fixed (bar fluctuations in fuel costs and interest rates etc) so how can it be worse for someone higher up the tax bracket? If it costs £3kp.a on a £30K wage it will still be £3k on a £60k wage.
My commute is 29 miles each way, predominantly 70mph roads and takes me about *33 minutes. *(depending on traffic levels and how many traffic lights I get held at). To do it by train (and ignoring the fact the services don't run when I need them) takes 1hr25m including walking either end so why would I choose that option?
The cost of commuting is fixed (bar fluctuations in fuel costs and interest rates etc) so how can it be worse for someone higher up the tax bracket? If it costs £3kp.a on a £30K wage it will still be £3k on a £60k wage.
The cost of owning the car vs not owning a car when doing that miles only for work is £5,000, however that's £5,000 after tax, and so when you're a higher rate tax payer you've got to earn more to have the same take home tax rate. The extra b needed to be earned is about £7,000 for basic rate and about £9,000 for higher rate.
People often look at the total pay that they get but not at what it truly costs them to achieve that pay and the actual amount of take home pay they end up with.
My last job change didn't involve getting a pay rise (i.e. the new job only matched my previous pay), however my take home pay increases by around £2,000 by no longer having to pay travel costs. Although it actually increased more than that as we could reduce the amount of childcare we needed as I was then working in the same location as my children's education rather than an hour away. Which means I can do drop off before work, rather than paying for wrap around care.
Obviously not everyone can work in a location where they don't need to drive. However the point I'm making if you can reduce your fuel costs, for example driving for an hour (say 45 miles each way) rather than two (say 79 miles each way), you may also actually be better off even if your pay was a bit less than £2,800 a year less in basic rate and about £3,500 a year less in higher rate.
That's just on fuel costs, it doesn't include extra maintenance including the need to replace the tyres more often or the extra depreciation on the car (3p per mile at an extra 34 miles each way per day would be about an extra £400 a year in deprecation).
The cost of owning the car vs not owning a car when doing that miles only for work is £5,000, however that's £5,000 after tax, and so when you're a higher rate tax payer you've got to earn more to have the same take home tax rate. The extra b needed to be earned is about £7,000 for basic rate and about £9,000 for higher rate.
People often look at the total pay that they get but not at what it truly costs them to achieve that pay and the actual amount of take home pay they end up with.
My last job change didn't involve getting a pay rise (i.e. the new job only matched my previous pay), however my take home pay increases by around £2,000 by no longer having to pay travel costs. Although it actually increased more than that as we could reduce the amount of childcare we needed as I was then working in the same location as my children's education rather than an hour away. Which means I can do drop off before work, rather than paying for wrap around care.
Obviously not everyone can work in a location where they don't need to drive. However the point I'm making if you can reduce your fuel costs, for example driving for an hour (say 45 miles each way) rather than two (say 79 miles each way), you may also actually be better off even if your pay was a bit less than £2,800 a year less in basic rate and about £3,500 a year less in higher rate.
That's just on fuel costs, it doesn't include extra maintenance including the need to replace the tyres more often or the extra depreciation on the car (3p per mile at an extra 34 miles each way per day would be about an extra £400 a year in deprecation).
Sorry, but people are not stupid and I think you are stating the obvious. This kind of 'trade-off' between spare time/money/job satisfaction occurs in many people's employment, whether they travel by car or public transport.
I doubt there are many people commuting by car from Coventry to Spalding [for instance] to do a job that they don't like and don't want to do, and offers no career prospects, when they could easily get a job they would like and do want to do with equivalent salary [less the difference in travel costs] closer to home. No-one does those kinds of journey for a minimum wage job, and only some people would take a job below their ability/desire for purely financial reasons. So I would suggest that there are other factors at play. Cars have enabled these decisions to have been made.
Sorry, but people are not stupid and I think you are stating the obvious. This kind of 'trade-off' between spare time/money/job satisfaction occurs in many people's employment, whether they travel by car or public transport.
I doubt there are many people commuting by car from Coventry to Spalding [for instance] to do a job that they don't like and don't want to do, and offers no career prospects, when they could easily get a job they would like and do want to do with equivalent salary [less the difference in travel costs] closer to home. No-one does those kinds of journey for a minimum wage job, and only some people would take a job below their ability/desire for purely financial reasons. So I would suggest that there are other factors at play. Cars have enabled these decisions to have been made.
I suspect that few actually sit down and work out the actual cost of car ownership, as whenever I say that there's data which says the average is £3,600 a year quite a few people question that.
The reason is likely to be down to the fact that it lies of smaller amounts and not everyone adds up each of the costs.
It doesn't take a lot for the cost of a car sitting on a driveway (not doing any miles nor accounting for depression) to be around £1,000 a year (£140 VED, £160 MOT and service, as well as insurance of £700) for some people.
Now whilst some will be lower than that (probably not a lot lower than £600), whilst for others it's possible for it to be around £1,500 if you're insurance is over £1,000 and/or some of the very high VED figures.
I agree that no one is going to drive those sorts of distances for minimum wage jobs, however if you're adding 12 hours a week in driving (an extra 1:15 driving each way) that's quite a lot of time out of the house.
For the same time you could do 4 days compressed hours and have 3 days a week when you're not working.
Clearly different people have different priorities, however the point I'm making is that often car use is just because that's what's done without actually considering if other options could be viable. It may well be that having looked at it, the use of a car for those distances is the best option for those individuals, however it may well have been since time since they last thought about it and circumstances (and costs) may have changed and it may no longer be the case.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
At least one insurance company has data which, at a time when accident rates are generally rising, shows the number of vehicle damage claims have fallen by 20% in Wales:
Campaigners say lower speeds reduce casualties but scheme has since been amended to give people more choice to rescind limits
www.theguardian.com
Rob Clark, head of motor underwriting at esure, said: “We can see a clear drop in vehicle damage claims in Wales since the 20mph speed restriction was introduced in September 2023. During a time when we usually see these claims rise, they dropped and have continued to do so in the first quarter of 2024. The restriction is clearly having an impact.”
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