9 ms·

I ditched my car – and improved my fitness, sleep and bank balance

83 points by sgt 3y ago

Waterluvian 3y ago
I can’t tell what kind of story this is supposed to be. It feels like satire but I’m not sure of what. It feels like a PR spin on not being able to afford a car. It feels like a story of achievement, but not having a car in London is pretty common.
- chasd00 3y ago
  a lot of the comments here are like a humble brag on level of misery. "i walk to work in -20F", "you get use to biking in sub-zero temps", i guess but why? Is the feeling of superiority worth the suffering? Maybe i'm just old and don't get it haha.
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    I think there might be a level of needing agency. You retain control of a situation if you own it like that. In a way I really respect that.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  I got the same vibe. The only concrete stories here are ones where he was robbed while he was a pedestrian in London (really? How common is that?); there's the crazy assertion that London is unsafe for women (what?!); and he described himself as a "woke, kale-eating metrosexual", despite the word "metrosexual" being passe for about a decade and "woke" being meant in the watered-down Fox News sense (just from the other side). You can even hear it, as a joke, in the voice of Jeremy Clarkson. And, absolutely, tons of people live in London without cars. Like you say, it's incredibly common.
WillAdams 3y ago
This is a lot easier in a locale which has public transportation. When my wife's car got totaled, I let her have mine, and rather than drive my truck every day, got out my daughter's bicycle for my 7 mile (one-way) commute. Big improvement in quality-of-life, but with some caveats: - Weather Underground's reports are quite accurate, but I had to check 3 of them each morning to be certain of avoiding a wetting (I'd drive the truck when it rained) - maintenance was a concern, but not a big deal --- just did an "ABC" check: https://bikeleague.org/videos/basic-bike-check/ https://bikeleague.org/videos/basic-bike-check/ and at need, pumped up tires at a gas station along the way --- eventually got a patch kit and small pump, which was fortuitous, since shortly after had my first (and only) flat - at 40 degrees F gloves become a necessity, but I managed to ride with the temperature as low as 17 F in pretty much normal (old) street clothes, added a heavy pair of pants, scarf, and knit cap It was a big win health-wise --- when I had to get an annual check-up to get a reduction in my insurance rates the doctor's comment was quite flattering, "I have patients who are half your age, twice your weight, and not one-quarter as healthy as you are.". Started commuting w/ my wife when I changed jobs and rather miss the bike.
- ourmandave 3y ago
  "I have patients who are half your age, twice your weight, and not one-quarter as healthy as you are." Sounds like a lead-in to a whiteboard interview question. =)
- jcims 3y ago
  >Started commuting w/ my wife when I changed jobs and rather miss the bike. I did this for a while when I was first married and I missed it for a very long time after we stopped. It was a 30 minute commute each way and gave us an hour a day to catch up and just be together.
- piva00 3y ago
  > but I managed to ride with the temperature as low as 17 F in pretty much normal (old) street clothes, added a heavy pair of pants, scarf, and knit cap > but I had to check 3 of them each morning to be certain of avoiding a wetting (I'd drive the truck when it rained) You were just 1 step away of discovering the magic of weatherproof clothes for biking, feeling impervious to the elements just because you got the right set of clothes is quasi magical, you simply don't care if it's raining or not, you can bike and not get wet. Completely recommend if you ever get the chance to go back to biking as a day-to-day commute activity :)
throwaway22032 3y ago
Awesome. I just bought a new car. Used it to go to the mountains and went hiking/camping. On the way back I visited family and brought over some furniture. In a couple of weeks I'll probably take it to a remote bit of the coast and enjoy the sunshine. Tomorrow I get the tube to go to Oxford Street and do some shopping, the car is worse for those sorts of things, just as public transport is pretty bad for some things.
- hahamrfunnyguy 3y ago
  I've got a car for the same reason. My car broke down last July and I wasn't able to get a replacement until December. I rode my bike around, used ride share, got rides from friends and rented a car for one longer trip. I only drive it a few hundred miles a month, so owning it is really expensive given that it's a $1000+ payment each month. I don't NEED it, but doing some of the outdoor activities I enjoy is difficult without a car. For example, I enjoy paragliding. The closest site is about a 20 mile drive from here. Decisions on whether or not to fly are often last minute, so I wouldn't want to rent a car the day before because chance to fly is often 50-50. It's not feasible to rent a car a couple hours before I want to leave that day.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  The problem is you very quickly adjust your lifestyle around the car and before you know it's no longer a luxury, it's a necessity. At a certain point it becomes a liability as you need to pay for repairs or pay to scrap it when it's time. It happens to people all the time and it will happen to you too if you are not careful.
  - throwaway22032 3y ago
    Could you explain what you mean here? I'm pretty reliant on my kettle for making coffee in the morning, it's not really a big deal to become adjusted to having a certain standard of living. Do you mean that I might move home to somewhere where the car is more of a necessity and then feel it a burden that I can't walk to places? At this stage of my life I probably wouldn't move to a place that didn't have public transport, unless car use is heavily restricted in London (I'd rather have both, but if I had to choose, the car is far superior to public transport in my everyday life).
agentgumshoe 3y ago
The smugness and naivety in that article is grating, though not unexpected from the Guardian. How nice to live in the perfect situation of no young kids, close transport and services and no need for frequent longer commutes away from transport. Then the casual comment that his wife will "just use taxis." I have a feeling he could afford the £250
- asutekku 3y ago
  It really depends on what taxi service you use, but on a long run it can be cheaper and more convenient than owning a car, if you do not need to use it every day.
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    I have a hard time buying the convenience aspect unless you have taxis driving by your front door regularly. Having to call or use an app to schedule a ride is tedious, and occasionally I’ve had taxis and rideshare blow me off for a better fare. Owning a car is an expense, but it’s much more convenient than the alternatives IMHO.
- petecooper 3y ago
  >The smugness and naivety in that article is grating. It's The Guardian – not the first time, certainly won't be the last. See also: https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/
  - agentgumshoe 3y ago
    Thanks for that, a fascinating read.
  - agentgumshoe 3y ago
    Not sure why you're getting downvoted, god forbid a journalist writes something honest.
  - throwaway-kr 3y ago
    I am not sure why this is downvoted, The Grauniad is well known for bleating smugness.
digdugdirk 3y ago
I've lived this lifestyle a few different times while living in the USA, and every time it's just inconvenient enough that I need to go back to owning a car after a few weeks/months. The time I'm able to go car free varies on location and climate, but there's still not the required infrastructure to make this a viable option for everyday life outside of a few select metro areas. It's a real shame, because the positive benefits experienced are real and quite noticeable, even in a short timespan.
- rjbwork 3y ago
  It really just depends on how committed you are and what your lifestyle is. I successfully lived in Atlanta, of all places, using nothing but an e-bike and public transit for an entire year, with a Lyft here or there as necessary. I got into better shape than I have been since I was a teenager too. Biking in rainy sub-zero temps is a bit of PITA, but it builds character, and honestly there's something charming and invigorating about it if you've got the right gear. Would love to do it again, and in fact am planning to at some point.
  - chasd00 3y ago
    > rainy sub-zero temps how does that work exactly? I've never seen rain when temps are below zero.
    - _dain_ 3y ago
      You can sometimes get a temperature inversion where the air near the ground is colder than the air further up, and then the rain doesn't have time to freeze before it hits the ground. Also surfaces can be sub-zero but the air above them is above zero and vice versa.
    - rjbwork 3y ago
      Ahh sorry, I interact with WAYY too many Europeans on the internet. I just meant below freezing, usually right below, Atlanta is not that cold. I think the lowest I saw during that year was about 11F.
- 3y ago
drdunce 3y ago
Diogenes also disliked the artificial and believed humans would do well to return to nature. A car is a key to straddle existing in the practicalities of the unavoidable modern day artificial, while also being able to get a taste of what is real once in a while by visiting maybe a forest/mountain/lake etc. Ironically, it seems he has severed his ability to achieve that trapping himself in the artificial.
- cirrrrrrus 3y ago
  This only works if you live close to truly natural spaces, and where I live even forests are urban spaces. Also, would your car get you through the desert or a virgin forest? I can get to beaches, forests, mountains by cycling or taking the train there with the right level of infrastructure to accommodate me and my family while still feeling in nature.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
For the 50-mile commute, my fitness would be amazing. Moving closer would be maybe 30k in up front taxes and expenses and it's a HCoL area, so, now, it's probably at least another 100k in mortgage interest, even if I hammer the repayments at double my current monthly outgoings. The train also takes 2 hours each way, plus 20 minutes walking.
- matsemann 3y ago
  Why should everyone bear the consequences of you living extremely remotely? By consequences I mean support costs of roads, congestion in the city by people outside driving in, noise, pollution, huge amount of area being wasted etc.
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    Why should I have to pay a huge amount of stamp duty tax to move closer to work[1]? Why should I get punished by a huge mortgage to do so because of a dysfunctional housing market[2]? For that matter, and actually I don't really think this one, I pay taxes willingly build this stuff, why should I pay for central-city public transport when I don't even commute from or to a central urban area[3]? Anyone can say things like that. If move if I could, and originally planned to when I took the job. I can't afford it now. I'd cycle if I could (and I used to, for years, at a different job, over 20 miles a day). I'd take public transport if I could. In fact, a promised train timetable cadence increase factored into moving into where I live now. It was quietly cancelled years ago. [1]: while I think stamp duty is a regressive tax that also prevents labour mobility and is in general a bad idea, it's especially bad when combined with inflating house prices (price to earnings ratio is now the highest in recorded history) that push everything around into higher bands. [2]: I actually don't really think the current interest rates themselves are necessarily bad, there are benefits to higher rates. But housing being so incredibly expensive makes such rates punishing. 6% on 100k is one thing. 6% on 250k is very different. [3]: funnily enough, though my current commute passes only a couple of miles of suburbs and the rest of it is motorway ending in an extra-urban business park, the public transport option involves trains going directly through urban cores of two cities and past rather a lot more houses. In fact, a different rail line goes within 100m of me: so why do I need to listen to those commuters? (Again, I don't actually think this).
heikkilevanto 3y ago
I have never owned a car, and plan to keep it that way. Of course it helps that I live in Copenhagen, with excellent bike infrastructure and good public transport, and that I live alone with no kids. I once calculated that with the Danish taxes on cars, it would almost be cheaper to take a taxi to work and back every day. I never did that, but I don't feel bad about taking a taxi when I need one, nor about paying for delivery of bigger items.
- mettamage 3y ago
  > Of course it helps that I live in Copenhagen, with excellent bike infrastructure and good public transport, and that I live alone with no kids. It helps massively. I've only been in the US for 4 months of my life, doing everything by car is horrible.
  - teekert 3y ago
    I tried to get food at night in Texas without car, a colleague was questioned for walking along the road and the Wendy's personnel slammed all he hatches of the drive through screaming: "There's a camera on you!!!", granted, it's a drive through, but there was no walk through. On a conference in Galveston TA, someone told me they went to a drive through funeral... I saw drive through pharmacies and drive through ATMs. It's a special place.
    - toyg 3y ago
      > a colleague was questioned for walking along the road That scene in the first Rambo, when he gets "picked up" by the police while just walking along a road, is fairly realistic. You're not supposed to be walking along roads, if you do there must be something wrong with you.
      - sudobash1 3y ago
        This is also the plot of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Pedestrian." Another example of an (unfortunately) relatable Ray Bradbury story.
ubermonkey 3y ago
I mean, sure, but going carless is literally not an option for people who live in more dispersed places with poor public transit. Unfortunately that describes nearly all of the U.S. -- only a few American cities have the required infrastructure and density.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  Your comment follows the pattern of the twitter trend where someone posts: “Enjoying coffee with my husband!” And gets replies about how not everyone has the privilege of affording coffee and being married.
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    Nah.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality gets the causation backwards and induces a kind of helplessness -- "we can't have better transport until we have higher density". But you can build good transport infrastructure first to make the place attractive for densifying development. A while ago there were some photos that got shared around of a Chinese subway station built out in the middle of nowhere (Chongqing I think?). It was held up as some self-evident absurdity produced by a crazy top-down system. But a few years later the place was thriving with new buildings and businesses, precisely because of the station. It's not absurd. This how things used to be done and people have just forgotten it! In the American west, railroads came first, towns later. London grew the "Metroland" suburbs out of the northwest railway expansion in the 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development Build it and they will come!
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality misunderstands how cities work and grow, particularly in the US, and induces a kind of willful blindness to the needs of people today.
kaon123 3y ago
Would have been nice if this headline started with "As a person living in a big city, I ditched my car (...)". Now it just feels ignorant towards people living in other areas - as everybody is pointing out in the comments.
- jswrenn 3y ago
  The article devotes a paragraph to saying as much. This line of criticism reminds be a bit of the debacle around the I-enjoy-coffee-with-my-husband-in-the-garden tweet: https://www.insider.com/woman-shocked-accusations-privilege-viral-coffee-tweet-2022-10 https://www.insider.com/woman-shocked-accusations-privilege-...
clcaev 3y ago
I wish we could have a conversation about smaller electric vehicles for the urban landscape rather than it be about bike vs large car, and bus vs large car, etc. There is a middle ground for personal transportation that is hardly discussed. It's a chicken and egg issue. We need dedicated lanes for smaller, slower personal electronic vehicles.
- hermannj314 3y ago
  Communities exist everywhere that accommodate the golf cart. Are you forbidden from driving one where you live?
zgiber 3y ago
You can live in London and never miss a car, but try it anywhere outside of big cities and it’ll be a different story. Not to mention the brutal train ticket prices.
yakireev 3y ago
So many people in the comments angry at the article author having the privilege of not having to drive, instead of being angry at the people who deny them this privilege. Y'all need to visit Amsterdam and Rotterdam at least once in your life. One is an old city, the other was (re)built from scratch in 50s and 60s "for cars". Both have great cycling infrastructure and decent public transport. These things are doable. Good luck to all who are trying to change the unsatisfying status-quo elsewhere.
- 2-718-281-828 3y ago
  how do you visit your sick mother living in benschop once a week?
  - yakireev 3y ago
    Never been to Benschop, but I've just checked, and Google says it's 1h 17m driving and 1h 36m on public transport from my place. It's a bike ride to Amsterdam Centraal, then a train to Utrecht Centraal, then a bus. No big deal, if once a week. So what's your question?
    - 2-718-281-828 3y ago
      do that three times and during winter. then report back ;)
      - yakireev 3y ago
        Huh? Tried that. Dutch winters are pretty mild, still no big deal. That being said, I used to live in Moscow before, and did have a daily 1.5h bus-and-metro commute there for a while. Not perfect, and quite anger-inducing because of the "tragedy of commons" situation: this commute would have been 1h long, if not less, if the bus didn't spend time in the traffic jams created by all those nice people in cars. But well, nowadays buses in Moscow have dedicated lanes, and that neighborhood got its own metro line, so it's getting better. Still not sure what exactly you are implying.
r2vcap 3y ago
Whether or not you can live without a car depends on the person and the area, so it is difficult to generalize. I have lived in Seoul for more than 30 years, and this city has excellent public transportation and severe traffic congestion, so the utility of having a car is not great. For example, it takes about 50 minutes to get home by public transportation after work, but it usually takes 1 hour and 20 minutes by car. In addition, I have to pay an annual insurance of $400 and a tax of $130, even if I don't use it even 1 km a year. And I actually don't use my car very often. I usually use it once a month, and my annual mileage is no more than 2000 km. Even so, I haven't sold my car yet. This is because it is much more efficient to use a car sometimes. But I don't know if it's right to spend hundreds of dollars every year like this.
- korse 3y ago
  This is something that I don't think gets brought up enough. Living in a city with great public transport and bike infrastructure is excellent (especially if you like to walk and cycle). It is even better if you have a car.
mellosouls 3y ago
The key sentences buried towards the end which completely refute the headline as a useful guideline for the majority: I also realise that, living in London ... Bus, tube and rail services are all on my doorstep. For me, giving up a car has been a different proposition to pretty much anywhere else in the country. London has brilliant public transport and is completely unrepresentative of the rest of the UK. Clickbait.
- kerrsclyde 3y ago
  Agreed. I live in a town in the South West of UK and the nearest train station is more than 45 mins drive away, no direct bus link with our nearest city, unreliable local buses, nothing in the way of cycle lanes, virtually no taxis, no uber etc, etc - basically 0% public transport. It's amazing how far out of touch those in London (i.e. politicians) are with the rest of the UK.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dauertewigkeit 3y ago
Today is a holiday in my state in Germany and being absent minded I realized too late. If I had a car, I could just hope in and drive somewhere in the forest and have a small hike. To do the same with public transport, one needs to plan ahead and time everything perfectly. For example, the bus to take you back after the end of the hiking trip is only at the bus stop every hour, and only up till 5pm. And owning a car does not mean you have to drive it to work everyday. I will probably buy a car in the near future, but I'll probably still commute with public transport. At least as long as I still live in a city. EDIT: If everyone ditched their cars, the housing crisis that is currently happening in literally every city in the developed world, will only get much worse.
- 28304283409234 3y ago
  Or do what I do: rent a car. Not owning a car does not mean never driving one.
  - dauertewigkeit 3y ago
    Renting a car has exactly the same drawback as public transport. You have to plan ahead each time, and there are the added logistics of picking up and dropping the car after use.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  That's true of course, but renting an EV for like 20€ a day is way waaaay cheaper than buying/maintaining/registering a car if you only need it for occasional trips, or even taking a cab for shorter journeys. Like I don't buy an airplane if I'm gonna take 3 flights per year.
  - dauertewigkeit 3y ago
    It is cheaper, not "waaay" cheaper, but it comes at the same cost of having to plan ahead, which really bothers me, because I am quite sporadic in how I plan my day.
galleywest200 3y ago
I camp and go backpacking too much to get rid of my car. Sure, I could take a bus that goes out to the spot once a week or so, but does that bus let me take a canoe, my dog, and all of my equipment and drive me 15 miles up a logging road to a less-used trail? Probably not.
- 28304283409234 3y ago
  That's when I rent a car.
victornomad 3y ago
I had the luck (or not) to live in many places in Europe, US, Asia, and in every single place I had the need to use a car I felt so miserable. For me not having to use a car === dramatic increase of quality of life.
28304283409234 3y ago
I'm in luck: I live in the Netherlands. Even though I have two teenage kids, I do not need to own a car, as I found out when I sold mine a few months back. My youngest literally said: I'm so glad we got rid of the car, because using trains is way more fun. Using the public transport at age 12 is far more empowering than sitting in the back of a car.
m-i-l 3y ago
I went without a car for decades, even in the first few years of having children, and reckon I saved >GBP200K as a result (plus kept in better shape etc.). But that was with the benefit of: - living in cities with good public transport (as a child I lived in some remote areas and appreciate that it would be pretty much impossible without a car). - living in the UK (some countries are even more difficult, see e.g. the food bank lines in the US where you need a car even though you can't afford food[0]). BTW, hadn't seen that Thatcher quote before: "If a man finds himself a passenger on a bus having attained the age of 26, he can count himself a failure in life."[1] but it only re-inforces my view that, if you are ever in doubt about which viewpoint to take on any subject, simply find out what Thatcher believed (or Thatcherites believe), and the good and correct viewpoint will be the exact opposite:-) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886064 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/07/a-moment-that-changed-me-i-ditched-my-car-and-improved-my-fitness-sleep-and-bank-balance https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/07/a-momen...
2-718-281-828 3y ago
there are many reasons to not own a car but if you can afford it then having a car is always better than not having a car. i bought my first car in my mid-30s. if you'd have asked me a year earlier i'd have assured you that i don't need a car and don't intend to own one ever. if i needed one i'd just rent it. but taking an hour long trip to the airport or somewhere else for the rental station got old after a while. especially the stress of having to be back at a certain time. planning traffic issues into the schedule. because overrunning the rented duration can come with disproportional cost. then came corona, the lockdowns, restricted public transportation and i started to crave for easy access to nature while at the same time living in the city. and i don't mean crowded parks. actual forests where you are alone. away from cars. you might say i got a car because i hate cars and i still do. but a car provides me with a freedom that now seems so obvious that people who claim they don't want a car seem almost brainwashed. especially because nobody says that having car means you have to use it all the time. i'd still prefer to go to work either by public transportation or by bike or even by foot. my car is standing somewhere about 5 days a week. but those 2 days i need the car or my options are limited. as a matter of fact i bought a car because i prefer the bicycle. at first i was taking the train for more remote bike tours. but taking the train with a bike in germany is torture. it wastes a lot of time. confronts you with problems like no place left, what ticket do i need, where do i get it, train not even coming and so on. now - i just hook up the bike and off i go. this you-don't-need-a-car thing really feels like some manipulative agenda with the intention to reeducate the simple people towards believing it and also accepting it - because no car is going to be the future for most of us - that's already been decided ("you'll own nothing and be happy"). i'm still looking forward to this future as well as i anticipate it with horror because i fear it's not going to be so great having your movement restricted. and of course those who decide those policies will continue owning and using cars. i'd totally ban cars from the city and certainly favor a tempolimit of 130 on the autobahn but it will need solutions that still allow people to flee from the city if they feel like it or spontaneously visit relatives whose villages can't be reached by public transportation.
deathlight 3y ago
I don't think being forced to ride public transit could ever improve my quality of life.
firecall 3y ago
Purchasing a car is by and large the worst financial decision young people make. Especially if it’s financed. I’m not even sure it’s a decision they make of free will. It’s sold to them as an essential step along the road to adulthood. Car ownership is a prison. I’m sure many people will argue that cars are essential, and that where they live you can’t do without one. Which is mostly true of where I live. But the broader issue is that we’ve done this to ourselves. One of the ways to build a better more social living existence is to deny car ownership. I don’t believe the world was better in the olden days l, before cars. But I do believe it can be better in the future with less of them.

83 points by sgt 3y ago

I can’t tell what kind of story this is supposed to be. It feels like satire but I’m not sure of what. It feels like a PR spin on not being able to afford a car. It feels like a story of achievement, but not having a car in London is pretty common.

chasd00 3y ago
a lot of the comments here are like a humble brag on level of misery. "i walk to work in -20F", "you get use to biking in sub-zero temps", i guess but why? Is the feeling of superiority worth the suffering? Maybe i'm just old and don't get it haha.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  I think there might be a level of needing agency. You retain control of a situation if you own it like that. In a way I really respect that.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
I got the same vibe. The only concrete stories here are ones where he was robbed while he was a pedestrian in London (really? How common is that?); there's the crazy assertion that London is unsafe for women (what?!); and he described himself as a "woke, kale-eating metrosexual", despite the word "metrosexual" being passe for about a decade and "woke" being meant in the watered-down Fox News sense (just from the other side). You can even hear it, as a joke, in the voice of Jeremy Clarkson. And, absolutely, tons of people live in London without cars. Like you say, it's incredibly common.

WillAdams 3y ago

This is a lot easier in a locale which has public transportation. When my wife's car got totaled, I let her have mine, and rather than drive my truck every day, got out my daughter's bicycle for my 7 mile (one-way) commute. Big improvement in quality-of-life, but with some caveats: - Weather Underground's reports are quite accurate, but I had to check 3 of them each morning to be certain of avoiding a wetting (I'd drive the truck when it rained) - maintenance was a concern, but not a big deal --- just did an "ABC" check: https://bikeleague.org/videos/basic-bike-check/ https://bikeleague.org/videos/basic-bike-check/ and at need, pumped up tires at a gas station along the way --- eventually got a patch kit and small pump, which was fortuitous, since shortly after had my first (and only) flat - at 40 degrees F gloves become a necessity, but I managed to ride with the temperature as low as 17 F in pretty much normal (old) street clothes, added a heavy pair of pants, scarf, and knit cap It was a big win health-wise --- when I had to get an annual check-up to get a reduction in my insurance rates the doctor's comment was quite flattering, "I have patients who are half your age, twice your weight, and not one-quarter as healthy as you are.". Started commuting w/ my wife when I changed jobs and rather miss the bike.

ourmandave 3y ago
"I have patients who are half your age, twice your weight, and not one-quarter as healthy as you are." Sounds like a lead-in to a whiteboard interview question. =)
jcims 3y ago
>Started commuting w/ my wife when I changed jobs and rather miss the bike. I did this for a while when I was first married and I missed it for a very long time after we stopped. It was a 30 minute commute each way and gave us an hour a day to catch up and just be together.
piva00 3y ago
> but I managed to ride with the temperature as low as 17 F in pretty much normal (old) street clothes, added a heavy pair of pants, scarf, and knit cap > but I had to check 3 of them each morning to be certain of avoiding a wetting (I'd drive the truck when it rained) You were just 1 step away of discovering the magic of weatherproof clothes for biking, feeling impervious to the elements just because you got the right set of clothes is quasi magical, you simply don't care if it's raining or not, you can bike and not get wet. Completely recommend if you ever get the chance to go back to biking as a day-to-day commute activity :)

throwaway22032 3y ago

Awesome. I just bought a new car. Used it to go to the mountains and went hiking/camping. On the way back I visited family and brought over some furniture. In a couple of weeks I'll probably take it to a remote bit of the coast and enjoy the sunshine. Tomorrow I get the tube to go to Oxford Street and do some shopping, the car is worse for those sorts of things, just as public transport is pretty bad for some things.

hahamrfunnyguy 3y ago
I've got a car for the same reason. My car broke down last July and I wasn't able to get a replacement until December. I rode my bike around, used ride share, got rides from friends and rented a car for one longer trip. I only drive it a few hundred miles a month, so owning it is really expensive given that it's a $1000+ payment each month. I don't NEED it, but doing some of the outdoor activities I enjoy is difficult without a car. For example, I enjoy paragliding. The closest site is about a 20 mile drive from here. Decisions on whether or not to fly are often last minute, so I wouldn't want to rent a car the day before because chance to fly is often 50-50. It's not feasible to rent a car a couple hours before I want to leave that day.
globular-toast 3y ago
The problem is you very quickly adjust your lifestyle around the car and before you know it's no longer a luxury, it's a necessity. At a certain point it becomes a liability as you need to pay for repairs or pay to scrap it when it's time. It happens to people all the time and it will happen to you too if you are not careful.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  Could you explain what you mean here? I'm pretty reliant on my kettle for making coffee in the morning, it's not really a big deal to become adjusted to having a certain standard of living. Do you mean that I might move home to somewhere where the car is more of a necessity and then feel it a burden that I can't walk to places? At this stage of my life I probably wouldn't move to a place that didn't have public transport, unless car use is heavily restricted in London (I'd rather have both, but if I had to choose, the car is far superior to public transport in my everyday life).

agentgumshoe 3y ago

The smugness and naivety in that article is grating, though not unexpected from the Guardian. How nice to live in the perfect situation of no young kids, close transport and services and no need for frequent longer commutes away from transport. Then the casual comment that his wife will "just use taxis." I have a feeling he could afford the £250

asutekku 3y ago
It really depends on what taxi service you use, but on a long run it can be cheaper and more convenient than owning a car, if you do not need to use it every day.
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  I have a hard time buying the convenience aspect unless you have taxis driving by your front door regularly. Having to call or use an app to schedule a ride is tedious, and occasionally I’ve had taxis and rideshare blow me off for a better fare. Owning a car is an expense, but it’s much more convenient than the alternatives IMHO.
petecooper 3y ago
>The smugness and naivety in that article is grating. It's The Guardian – not the first time, certainly won't be the last. See also: https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/
- agentgumshoe 3y ago
  Thanks for that, a fascinating read.
- agentgumshoe 3y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted, god forbid a journalist writes something honest.
- throwaway-kr 3y ago
  I am not sure why this is downvoted, The Grauniad is well known for bleating smugness.

digdugdirk 3y ago

I've lived this lifestyle a few different times while living in the USA, and every time it's just inconvenient enough that I need to go back to owning a car after a few weeks/months. The time I'm able to go car free varies on location and climate, but there's still not the required infrastructure to make this a viable option for everyday life outside of a few select metro areas. It's a real shame, because the positive benefits experienced are real and quite noticeable, even in a short timespan.

rjbwork 3y ago
It really just depends on how committed you are and what your lifestyle is. I successfully lived in Atlanta, of all places, using nothing but an e-bike and public transit for an entire year, with a Lyft here or there as necessary. I got into better shape than I have been since I was a teenager too. Biking in rainy sub-zero temps is a bit of PITA, but it builds character, and honestly there's something charming and invigorating about it if you've got the right gear. Would love to do it again, and in fact am planning to at some point.
- chasd00 3y ago
  > rainy sub-zero temps how does that work exactly? I've never seen rain when temps are below zero.
  - _dain_ 3y ago
    You can sometimes get a temperature inversion where the air near the ground is colder than the air further up, and then the rain doesn't have time to freeze before it hits the ground. Also surfaces can be sub-zero but the air above them is above zero and vice versa.
  - rjbwork 3y ago
    Ahh sorry, I interact with WAYY too many Europeans on the internet. I just meant below freezing, usually right below, Atlanta is not that cold. I think the lowest I saw during that year was about 11F.
3y ago

drdunce 3y ago

Diogenes also disliked the artificial and believed humans would do well to return to nature. A car is a key to straddle existing in the practicalities of the unavoidable modern day artificial, while also being able to get a taste of what is real once in a while by visiting maybe a forest/mountain/lake etc. Ironically, it seems he has severed his ability to achieve that trapping himself in the artificial.

cirrrrrrus 3y ago
This only works if you live close to truly natural spaces, and where I live even forests are urban spaces. Also, would your car get you through the desert or a virgin forest? I can get to beaches, forests, mountains by cycling or taking the train there with the right level of infrastructure to accommodate me and my family while still feeling in nature.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

For the 50-mile commute, my fitness would be amazing. Moving closer would be maybe 30k in up front taxes and expenses and it's a HCoL area, so, now, it's probably at least another 100k in mortgage interest, even if I hammer the repayments at double my current monthly outgoings. The train also takes 2 hours each way, plus 20 minutes walking.

matsemann 3y ago
Why should everyone bear the consequences of you living extremely remotely? By consequences I mean support costs of roads, congestion in the city by people outside driving in, noise, pollution, huge amount of area being wasted etc.
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  Why should I have to pay a huge amount of stamp duty tax to move closer to work[1]? Why should I get punished by a huge mortgage to do so because of a dysfunctional housing market[2]? For that matter, and actually I don't really think this one, I pay taxes willingly build this stuff, why should I pay for central-city public transport when I don't even commute from or to a central urban area[3]? Anyone can say things like that. If move if I could, and originally planned to when I took the job. I can't afford it now. I'd cycle if I could (and I used to, for years, at a different job, over 20 miles a day). I'd take public transport if I could. In fact, a promised train timetable cadence increase factored into moving into where I live now. It was quietly cancelled years ago. [1]: while I think stamp duty is a regressive tax that also prevents labour mobility and is in general a bad idea, it's especially bad when combined with inflating house prices (price to earnings ratio is now the highest in recorded history) that push everything around into higher bands. [2]: I actually don't really think the current interest rates themselves are necessarily bad, there are benefits to higher rates. But housing being so incredibly expensive makes such rates punishing. 6% on 100k is one thing. 6% on 250k is very different. [3]: funnily enough, though my current commute passes only a couple of miles of suburbs and the rest of it is motorway ending in an extra-urban business park, the public transport option involves trains going directly through urban cores of two cities and past rather a lot more houses. In fact, a different rail line goes within 100m of me: so why do I need to listen to those commuters? (Again, I don't actually think this).

heikkilevanto 3y ago

I have never owned a car, and plan to keep it that way. Of course it helps that I live in Copenhagen, with excellent bike infrastructure and good public transport, and that I live alone with no kids. I once calculated that with the Danish taxes on cars, it would almost be cheaper to take a taxi to work and back every day. I never did that, but I don't feel bad about taking a taxi when I need one, nor about paying for delivery of bigger items.

mettamage 3y ago
> Of course it helps that I live in Copenhagen, with excellent bike infrastructure and good public transport, and that I live alone with no kids. It helps massively. I've only been in the US for 4 months of my life, doing everything by car is horrible.
- teekert 3y ago
  I tried to get food at night in Texas without car, a colleague was questioned for walking along the road and the Wendy's personnel slammed all he hatches of the drive through screaming: "There's a camera on you!!!", granted, it's a drive through, but there was no walk through. On a conference in Galveston TA, someone told me they went to a drive through funeral... I saw drive through pharmacies and drive through ATMs. It's a special place.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > a colleague was questioned for walking along the road That scene in the first Rambo, when he gets "picked up" by the police while just walking along a road, is fairly realistic. You're not supposed to be walking along roads, if you do there must be something wrong with you.
    - sudobash1 3y ago
      This is also the plot of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Pedestrian." Another example of an (unfortunately) relatable Ray Bradbury story.

ubermonkey 3y ago

I mean, sure, but going carless is literally not an option for people who live in more dispersed places with poor public transit. Unfortunately that describes nearly all of the U.S. -- only a few American cities have the required infrastructure and density.

droopyEyelids 3y ago
Your comment follows the pattern of the twitter trend where someone posts: “Enjoying coffee with my husband!” And gets replies about how not everyone has the privilege of affording coffee and being married.
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  Nah.
_dain_ 3y ago
You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality gets the causation backwards and induces a kind of helplessness -- "we can't have better transport until we have higher density". But you can build good transport infrastructure first to make the place attractive for densifying development. A while ago there were some photos that got shared around of a Chinese subway station built out in the middle of nowhere (Chongqing I think?). It was held up as some self-evident absurdity produced by a crazy top-down system. But a few years later the place was thriving with new buildings and businesses, precisely because of the station. It's not absurd. This how things used to be done and people have just forgotten it! In the American west, railroads came first, towns later. London grew the "Metroland" suburbs out of the northwest railway expansion in the 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development Build it and they will come!
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality misunderstands how cities work and grow, particularly in the US, and induces a kind of willful blindness to the needs of people today.

kaon123 3y ago

Would have been nice if this headline started with "As a person living in a big city, I ditched my car (...)". Now it just feels ignorant towards people living in other areas - as everybody is pointing out in the comments.

jswrenn 3y ago
The article devotes a paragraph to saying as much. This line of criticism reminds be a bit of the debacle around the I-enjoy-coffee-with-my-husband-in-the-garden tweet: https://www.insider.com/woman-shocked-accusations-privilege-viral-coffee-tweet-2022-10 https://www.insider.com/woman-shocked-accusations-privilege-...

clcaev 3y ago

I wish we could have a conversation about smaller electric vehicles for the urban landscape rather than it be about bike vs large car, and bus vs large car, etc. There is a middle ground for personal transportation that is hardly discussed. It's a chicken and egg issue. We need dedicated lanes for smaller, slower personal electronic vehicles.

hermannj314 3y ago
Communities exist everywhere that accommodate the golf cart. Are you forbidden from driving one where you live?

zgiber 3y ago

You can live in London and never miss a car, but try it anywhere outside of big cities and it’ll be a different story. Not to mention the brutal train ticket prices.

yakireev 3y ago

So many people in the comments angry at the article author having the privilege of not having to drive, instead of being angry at the people who deny them this privilege. Y'all need to visit Amsterdam and Rotterdam at least once in your life. One is an old city, the other was (re)built from scratch in 50s and 60s "for cars". Both have great cycling infrastructure and decent public transport. These things are doable. Good luck to all who are trying to change the unsatisfying status-quo elsewhere.

2-718-281-828 3y ago
how do you visit your sick mother living in benschop once a week?
- yakireev 3y ago
  Never been to Benschop, but I've just checked, and Google says it's 1h 17m driving and 1h 36m on public transport from my place. It's a bike ride to Amsterdam Centraal, then a train to Utrecht Centraal, then a bus. No big deal, if once a week. So what's your question?
  - 2-718-281-828 3y ago
    do that three times and during winter. then report back ;)
    - yakireev 3y ago
      Huh? Tried that. Dutch winters are pretty mild, still no big deal. That being said, I used to live in Moscow before, and did have a daily 1.5h bus-and-metro commute there for a while. Not perfect, and quite anger-inducing because of the "tragedy of commons" situation: this commute would have been 1h long, if not less, if the bus didn't spend time in the traffic jams created by all those nice people in cars. But well, nowadays buses in Moscow have dedicated lanes, and that neighborhood got its own metro line, so it's getting better. Still not sure what exactly you are implying.

r2vcap 3y ago

Whether or not you can live without a car depends on the person and the area, so it is difficult to generalize. I have lived in Seoul for more than 30 years, and this city has excellent public transportation and severe traffic congestion, so the utility of having a car is not great. For example, it takes about 50 minutes to get home by public transportation after work, but it usually takes 1 hour and 20 minutes by car. In addition, I have to pay an annual insurance of $400 and a tax of $130, even if I don't use it even 1 km a year. And I actually don't use my car very often. I usually use it once a month, and my annual mileage is no more than 2000 km. Even so, I haven't sold my car yet. This is because it is much more efficient to use a car sometimes. But I don't know if it's right to spend hundreds of dollars every year like this.

korse 3y ago
This is something that I don't think gets brought up enough. Living in a city with great public transport and bike infrastructure is excellent (especially if you like to walk and cycle). It is even better if you have a car.

mellosouls 3y ago

The key sentences buried towards the end which completely refute the headline as a useful guideline for the majority: I also realise that, living in London ... Bus, tube and rail services are all on my doorstep. For me, giving up a car has been a different proposition to pretty much anywhere else in the country. London has brilliant public transport and is completely unrepresentative of the rest of the UK. Clickbait.

kerrsclyde 3y ago
Agreed. I live in a town in the South West of UK and the nearest train station is more than 45 mins drive away, no direct bus link with our nearest city, unreliable local buses, nothing in the way of cycle lanes, virtually no taxis, no uber etc, etc - basically 0% public transport. It's amazing how far out of touch those in London (i.e. politicians) are with the rest of the UK.
deleted 3y ago
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dauertewigkeit 3y ago

Today is a holiday in my state in Germany and being absent minded I realized too late. If I had a car, I could just hope in and drive somewhere in the forest and have a small hike. To do the same with public transport, one needs to plan ahead and time everything perfectly. For example, the bus to take you back after the end of the hiking trip is only at the bus stop every hour, and only up till 5pm. And owning a car does not mean you have to drive it to work everyday. I will probably buy a car in the near future, but I'll probably still commute with public transport. At least as long as I still live in a city. EDIT: If everyone ditched their cars, the housing crisis that is currently happening in literally every city in the developed world, will only get much worse.

28304283409234 3y ago
Or do what I do: rent a car. Not owning a car does not mean never driving one.
- dauertewigkeit 3y ago
  Renting a car has exactly the same drawback as public transport. You have to plan ahead each time, and there are the added logistics of picking up and dropping the car after use.
moffkalast 3y ago
That's true of course, but renting an EV for like 20€ a day is way waaaay cheaper than buying/maintaining/registering a car if you only need it for occasional trips, or even taking a cab for shorter journeys. Like I don't buy an airplane if I'm gonna take 3 flights per year.
- dauertewigkeit 3y ago
  It is cheaper, not "waaay" cheaper, but it comes at the same cost of having to plan ahead, which really bothers me, because I am quite sporadic in how I plan my day.

galleywest200 3y ago

I camp and go backpacking too much to get rid of my car. Sure, I could take a bus that goes out to the spot once a week or so, but does that bus let me take a canoe, my dog, and all of my equipment and drive me 15 miles up a logging road to a less-used trail? Probably not.

28304283409234 3y ago
That's when I rent a car.

victornomad 3y ago

I had the luck (or not) to live in many places in Europe, US, Asia, and in every single place I had the need to use a car I felt so miserable. For me not having to use a car === dramatic increase of quality of life.

28304283409234 3y ago

I'm in luck: I live in the Netherlands. Even though I have two teenage kids, I do not need to own a car, as I found out when I sold mine a few months back. My youngest literally said: I'm so glad we got rid of the car, because using trains is way more fun. Using the public transport at age 12 is far more empowering than sitting in the back of a car.

m-i-l 3y ago

I went without a car for decades, even in the first few years of having children, and reckon I saved >GBP200K as a result (plus kept in better shape etc.). But that was with the benefit of: - living in cities with good public transport (as a child I lived in some remote areas and appreciate that it would be pretty much impossible without a car). - living in the UK (some countries are even more difficult, see e.g. the food bank lines in the US where you need a car even though you can't afford food[0]). BTW, hadn't seen that Thatcher quote before: "If a man finds himself a passenger on a bus having attained the age of 26, he can count himself a failure in life."[1] but it only re-inforces my view that, if you are ever in doubt about which viewpoint to take on any subject, simply find out what Thatcher believed (or Thatcherites believe), and the good and correct viewpoint will be the exact opposite:-) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886064 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/07/a-moment-that-changed-me-i-ditched-my-car-and-improved-my-fitness-sleep-and-bank-balance https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/07/a-momen...

2-718-281-828 3y ago

there are many reasons to not own a car but if you can afford it then having a car is always better than not having a car. i bought my first car in my mid-30s. if you'd have asked me a year earlier i'd have assured you that i don't need a car and don't intend to own one ever. if i needed one i'd just rent it. but taking an hour long trip to the airport or somewhere else for the rental station got old after a while. especially the stress of having to be back at a certain time. planning traffic issues into the schedule. because overrunning the rented duration can come with disproportional cost. then came corona, the lockdowns, restricted public transportation and i started to crave for easy access to nature while at the same time living in the city. and i don't mean crowded parks. actual forests where you are alone. away from cars. you might say i got a car because i hate cars and i still do. but a car provides me with a freedom that now seems so obvious that people who claim they don't want a car seem almost brainwashed. especially because nobody says that having car means you have to use it all the time. i'd still prefer to go to work either by public transportation or by bike or even by foot. my car is standing somewhere about 5 days a week. but those 2 days i need the car or my options are limited. as a matter of fact i bought a car because i prefer the bicycle. at first i was taking the train for more remote bike tours. but taking the train with a bike in germany is torture. it wastes a lot of time. confronts you with problems like no place left, what ticket do i need, where do i get it, train not even coming and so on. now - i just hook up the bike and off i go. this you-don't-need-a-car thing really feels like some manipulative agenda with the intention to reeducate the simple people towards believing it and also accepting it - because no car is going to be the future for most of us - that's already been decided ("you'll own nothing and be happy"). i'm still looking forward to this future as well as i anticipate it with horror because i fear it's not going to be so great having your movement restricted. and of course those who decide those policies will continue owning and using cars. i'd totally ban cars from the city and certainly favor a tempolimit of 130 on the autobahn but it will need solutions that still allow people to flee from the city if they feel like it or spontaneously visit relatives whose villages can't be reached by public transportation.

deathlight 3y ago

I don't think being forced to ride public transit could ever improve my quality of life.

firecall 3y ago

Purchasing a car is by and large the worst financial decision young people make. Especially if it’s financed. I’m not even sure it’s a decision they make of free will. It’s sold to them as an essential step along the road to adulthood. Car ownership is a prison. I’m sure many people will argue that cars are essential, and that where they live you can’t do without one. Which is mostly true of where I live. But the broader issue is that we’ve done this to ourselves. One of the ways to build a better more social living existence is to deny car ownership. I don’t believe the world was better in the olden days l, before cars. But I do believe it can be better in the future with less of them.