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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
by 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 agoIt 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 agoI 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 agoThanks for that, a fascinating read.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted, god forbid a journalist writes something honest.
- throwaway-kr 3y agoI am not sure why this is downvoted, The Grauniad is well known for bleating smugness.
- avianlyric 3y agoNo kids? Author clearly mentions he had a young daughter that had just out grown their child seat when they gave up their car. Certainly living in city with good public transport is a large factor. By why can’t we build more places like that, and making living car free easy and practical for everyone? It’s ultimately cheaper and healthier for both the individuals and society as a whole, why hate on those that want see more people being able to benefit from such a lifestyle? As for taxis, in London, the money you save on fuel, tax, congestion charges, maintenance, insurance etc etc which all come with car ownership, will pay for a lot of taxi rides each year.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoSorry, yes meant to say young kids. Though I suppose that doesn't matter, there are ways to carry, cart them around.
- throwaway894345 3y agoThe fatality rate for cycling in an urban area is much higher than that of driving. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with a young child on a bike.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoNot for the authors of the article, they have moral righteousness on their side!
- avianlyric 3y agoPerhaps in the US but London has increasingly fantastic dedicated cycle infrastructure. Removing the need for bike to ever directly interact with cars on many journeys. Also urban fatalities of people on bikes is driven almost entirely by people driving cars. In what world do we look at the problem of cars killing people on bikes and go “well obviously the bikes are the problem”. All the stats in this area clearly indicate that drivers are far more often at fault in these collisions than those on bikes. Same again goes for pedestrians, cars kill pedestrians regardless of how careful pedestrians are.
- ourmandave 3y agoGiven bus service where I am, my commute would go from 10 minutes one-way to literally 2 hours. I'd lose on the sleep getting up 2 hours earlier, but gain on fitness walking a 1/4 mile to the bus stop.
- throwaway894345 3y agoThis is how most of my conversations with “ideological cyclists” (for lack of a better term) tend to go. I’m very supportive of cycling, but if you aren’t healthy or if you have kids giving up your car is enormously inconvenient. Yes, you can teach your kids to ride, but cycling is still much more dangerous than driving. Yes, you can rent a car or get an uber as needed, but it’s far more convenient to just jump in one’s own car. Yes, you can prepare for really cold or precipitous weather to a degree, but it’s way more convenient to simply not have to monitor the weather all the time and tote around your extra cycling clothes. And there’s really nothing you can do about hot weather unless your destination has a shower or you can otherwise make do with being sweaty. When you add up all of these decently-sized inconveniences, it just doesn’t make sense to do away with your car except perhaps in certain ideal situations (healthy, no kids, urban/great public transit, close to work, not traveling out of the area to visit family often, etc). The best I can realistically do is family car + bike. EDIT: I'm getting throttled; can't respond to any more comments for a few hours.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoAnd good luck getting your five year old to ride 20km... I think the sensible thing (assuming affording the car in the first place is fine), is to make good decisions about when to use a car or bike or walk or use transit. It doesn't have to be binary, much as everything except gender seems to be these days.
- ubermonkey 3y agoExactly. What's infuriating about these all or nothing articles is the exclusion of "car lite" approaches. Over time and kind of slowly, my wife and I realized we really only needed one car. When the market moved around to make selling one of them way way too attractive, we did so (it was an older Porsche, and the market for those went UTTERLY NUTS -- I had it for nearly 20 years and sold it for about 85% what I paid for it). That was really fine until she took a different job that was no longer public-transit friendly (ironically, it's a job working for the city). I think most couples would've sighed and bought a second car, but we really, really didn't want to -- so we bought a small motorcycle instead. While not suitable for the freeways, provides JUST ENOUGH supplemental mobility that the idea of a second car seems absurd now (especially given the price; the bike was $4800 and gets 80mpg). (We DID think about ebikes, but they cost almost as much without providing nearly the utility.)
- globular-toast 3y agoYou rely on your car because you have a car and chose to rely on it. Of course he could afford £250. That's the price of one annual service these days.
- smileysteve 3y agoIt's $168 average for US car insurance per month too.
- wschfdkbrmcdf 3y agoYou vill own naaaasink unt be haapy!
- Puts 3y agoAre you personally offended by someone sharing their experience of living without a car? Maybe people in the writers situation have never reflected about this lifestyle before because they take the car for granted and now he inspired people to try to live without a car. That doesn't mean that everybody needs to stop using their car – especially if they are dependent on it. Whenever someone reacts strongly just because someone else share their personal experience of different life choices whether it's ditching the car or going vegetarian or anything progressive I can't help think it's their own guilt speaking.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThese car conversations always go the same way. Some people just want to live their life the way they want, other people want to tell them it's wrong and they should feel bad. > whether it's ditching the car or going vegetarian or anything progressive I can't help think it's their own guilt speaking As a progressive, I find that sort of attitude a little grating. Can't imagine what it's like for conservatives.
- throwaway894345 3y agoIndeed. The grandparent criticized TFA for seeming smug and the parent responds with “it’s your guilt speaking”. Wild stuff.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoIf the article was written like that, sure. Bit it wasn't, so I responded.
- masswerk 3y agoThis is what you'll get, if you consider public transport just a residual option for the "failures in life" (© M. Thatcher): not depending on personal transport becomes a privilege of those living in a walkable city in a suitable situation of life. (Consider yourself taxed, otherwise.) (Disclosure: enjoying this kind of privileges, I ditched my car in the early 2000s, without regret. But I can see that this is only an option for a happy minority, nowadays.)
- masswerk 3y agoBTW, one of the benefits of a functional, socially mixed public transport system is being confronted with a diverse population, which helps with not becoming trapped in a bubble. (Which may be exactly the "failure" according to M. Thatcher.)
- 28304283409234 3y agoSince selling our car we've been saving an extra 250 per month(!). Yes, we can now afford taxis on the rare moments we need one.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoWell it's a good thing you didn't depend on it to get to work then!
- 28304283409234 3y agoThat was not the point argued. But you are correct.