[Closed] Driving: What is the tipping point?

As for boarding schools, I would think that we could save SO MUCH on traffic if we had something akin to the North American school bus system. There, every School Board (overseeing multiple schools) has a fleet of school buses used to transport any children more than a certain distance away. Everyone else is encouraged to walk or take a bicycle.

Can you imagine? 40-50 children in each bus? That's a lot fewer cars on the road. Plus, you get to get driven to school by this guy.

I mean, who could possibly not want to pull a Michael Douglas

A bold statement to make for an older North American such as yourself driving round a town full of young Welsh ladies....

Ultimately, though, when I ask about the “tipping point”, I am really just wondering aloud if all the others on the road don’t also despair

Ultimately, though, when I ask about the “tipping point”, I am really just wondering aloud if all the others on the road don’t also despair… I mean, who could possibly not want to pull a Michael Douglas in Falling Down, when having to do that every single day?!? Or if not a Michael Douglas, then at least try to be part of a solution?

What would a 'tipping point' look like to you? I mean what would happen then? I'm sure there's some statistical model that shows when speeds slow to a certain level people are less likely to drive, but presumably things would hover somewhere around that point unless there's some sort of government intervention aimed at changing behaviour?

What does seem clear is that simply building more and more roads achieves nothing except to draw more people onto them.

Call that a traffic jam?!?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_traffic_jam

I commute to Glasgow via public transport every working day. I leave my house at 6.30am and get into my lab around 8am – 8.15am. I travel into the city on the local bus service. It’s slow, expensive and oh my, you do encounter some characters on it. Once I’m in the city, I travel from the centre out to the west end either by the subway if it’s pishing down or on a Nextbike. Return journey is much the same, although the ‘character encounters’ are more frequent.

What I see every morning, is traffic snarling up and coming to an almost standstill on the motorway about 3 miles from the city centre. In the winter, this can extend out to about 7 miles. In the mornings, when I look up from the book I’m reading or amazon prime episode I’m watching, while sitting on my nearly empty bus, I can look into the cars and without exaggeration, I’d say that less than 1 in 20 have more than one person in them.

People think my commute is a horror show, (which it actually kind of is as I’m currently watching downloaded episodes of Preacher in the mornings on my Amazon Fire), but I would go mad if I was sitting on my trying to drive a car through that nightmare.

I always make a point of thanking the bus driver every time I get off. I can’t see why anyone would want to drive into or around a city.

I probably do a similar route, but usually take the bike, which is 1hr each way ish including getting a shower/changed. When I broke my wrist I tried public transport and found thusly:

-the train station is so far away it takes an age to get to, and even if I could get a lift or drive there, there were works at Queen St and big issues (delays >1hr for a normally 12 minute journey) both days I tried it.

-There's a bus stop at the end of my road. It was literally more expensive than I could imagine for a return fare, so I only had money for a single. It should have taken about 1h if the bus ran on time, but it took me 1.5hrs as the traffic was bad/timetable was hopelessly optimistic.

I drove. It was more than taking the train, but less than taking the bus (bearing in mind I already have the car, and pay tax etc on it anyway, I'm only counting parking and petrol here, but even the total cost would've been similar and cheaper parking options were available). It never took me more than 35 minutes, I got to see my kids more etc. - and that's despite the horrendous traffic on the motorway.

So whilst I can see the attraction of public transport if you're happy to watch telly or read a book, I had my (to me good) reasons to get home quicker, couldn't take the bike, and public transport just wasn't up to the job.

If I do anything that hinders my driving and cycling, I'll just work from home or take a lot of time off sick.

I think the solution is proper investment in active travel to make it more attractive and safer, and nationalisation of public transport (to prevent the ever increasing spiral of cost). Once you're there with the carrots, you can bring out the big sticks to beat motorists with. I can understand why people drive round here, but they should be heavily discouraged.

Well people look at me and go ..why dont you drive?...I answer..it takes me 25 mins to do my commute each way..I can get to shops and friends and anything else in a bout a 10 mile radius..why waste fuel or cause pollution when frankly I feel better when I cycle(helps with depression plus other behavioural issues) and I can usually get there about the same time as I can squeeze through gaps and filter ..so dont need to drive...most people dont..but they do anyway..

I say ...GET OFF YOUR F***G LAZY ASSES AND DO SOME EXCERSIZE YOU FAT FS..over dependency on cars is laziness..you will feel better and be healthier if you do journeys under 30 miles by bike or journeys under 10 miles by walking..then you will just do it that way..I dont have another means(DONT DRIVE-NO LISCENCE) and I'm still able to get around ..its a waste and I'm frankly ashamed when I meet those people who drive on a 5 minute walk..pathetic..try biking it for a few months all weathers then it's just normal..and Frankely EASY...security has to be covered but that's not too hard..

After this winter, and two near being squished moments I gave in and started commuting by car, now I ride in 1 or 2 days a week. It's only 3 miles or so, but through heavy traffic. On Friday on a back road I was using to try to avoid the main chaos I had an audi driver aim straight at me on the wrong side of the road (parked traffic on his lane). I had to jump on to the curb. I thought bet he isn't going to slow down....oh know he has actually put his foot down and aimed at me. It is frankly ****ing ridiculous that sort of thing is deemed ok now in the battle to get to work on time.

I actually actively discourage others from commuting by bike in my city unless they are really confident it is too dangerous.
In my 3.5miles I ride past where two pedestrians and one cyclist have been killed in the last 2 years.

How about making everywhere one massive one way system?!

The root of the problem is car ownership. If we get rid of that issue everything else is solvable. The problem is the big car manufacturers don’t want to lose sales.

Imagine a future with a Johnny Cab picking you up in the morning then picking up someone else going the same route. No more single occupancy vehicles. Also Mr Johnny Cab won’t drive deliberately at cyclists.

Who will vote for my political party “The Abolish Car Ownership Alliance”?

I live in North London, public transport is pretty good really, I can't complain too much

I mostly cycle to work in central London (21 mile round trip) although I live right by a tube station

I cycle locally and for my kids clubs I cycle a cargo bike. Pre cargo bike I was using a car. To be honest my area is quite hilly so it's a hard work but hopefully an electric conversion solves that.

I drive once a week to my kids' swimming lesson but only because it's too far to cycle and there's no safe route anyway. If I didn't have a car I could find a pool that was closer but they're getting on well so no desire to change this.

We do have regular buses around but I don't really use these

I can see the challenge of living somewhere without public transport. Our UK holidays highlight how difficult it would be without a car

I listened to an interesting podcast a while back where they spoke to the mayor of a Spanish city that had successfully banned cars. One of the most telling bits was when they asked him if this wasn’t unpopular. His response was that yes, initially it was, but if you provide viable alternatives, people forget about that, use those alternatives and appreciate how much more pleasant it is living in a car-free space.

Seville, I think? Their plan was to get all the infrastructure for cycling/walking built fast, in the year or two after election, so that the benefits would kick in before they were voted out.

Something similar happened in (I think) Utrecht - a socialist-green council got unexpectedly elected; thinking that they'd never get reelected anyway they just pushed through car bans and infrastructure building. It turned out to be so popular they got back in.

It's campaigning for stuff like this that made me stand for election - we were asking the wrong people to do the right thing.

Move to the sticks, there's fewer cars.

Obviously not the answer for everyone, but it worked for us.

We still drive a lot of places. My wife's work is too far to make biking realistic. Public transport is beyond comedy.

But.

I ride to work some of the time. Driving is ok - I'm not in enough traffic for it to be a hassle.

Kids can be biked to some activities in the village.

Dunno what the answer for UK plc. is though. Running public transport as a public service, not as a profit making corporation would be a good start.

Well, we can all do our bit cycling when we can and reducing the congestion that would be there otherwise. But a lot of people will have to be made to do it, probably by hitting them financially which doesn't help the less well off.

Unless anyone wants to invest in my boutique pedal car business to tempt the bourgeoisie away from their German cars. Then others will aspire to these too...

People use their cars as a two-ton mobility scooter. Why walk to the corner store when it's easier to drive. Most folk at the place I work drive a mile or two in. I know someone who drove half a mile day in day out, complained about parking issues. One morning defrosting their car they realized it might be quicker to walk, simply hadn't occurred to them before.

Move to the sticks, there’s fewer cars.

Live where you want, work somewhere else, just join the two up by car. A lifestyle made possible by fossil fuels. I'm not sure that's the answer either, but probably the one I'd go for.

Haven't read the whole thread but

https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1170031474118221825?s=20

Something similar happened in (I think) Utrecht – a socialist-green council got unexpectedly elected; thinking that they’d never get reelected anyway they just pushed through car bans and infrastructure building. It turned out to be so popular they got back in.

It’s campaigning for stuff like this that made me stand for election – we were asking the wrong people to do the right thing.

I like! 🙂

I do yay mileage a year getting to work as I travel nationwide* - as it happens, the car cooked her alternator on Monday so I've had to commute from the hotel by bike this week (thank god it was in the back of the car!). It's been really interesting to be back on the roads for the first time in a couple of years, firstly because it reminds me that bikes are by a mile the best way to get around where distances are practicable, secondly because I've had to become reacquainted with just how shit car drivers can be and how much better the world will be when they're all f***ed off (me included). The win goes to the high-speed/close-range pass ****s, but a special mention for those who think that slow speed excuses a close pass, I'd forgotten about those mouth-breathers.

* Love my job, but seeking a change to a cycleable commute as I just don't think the carbon I pump out is morally justifiable.

you will feel better and be healthier if you do journeys under 30 miles by bike or journeys under 10 miles by walking.

You will also have far less time to do anything else. 10 miles works out to 3 hours walking, not accounting for hills. No ta.

Bit nuts, really - just realised, for a local (6.5 mile) job recently, it took me 75 minutes to drive to the train station, travel to the city centre, then walk to the client's office. If they'd had a washroom, I could have done it in half the time on the bike with zero carbon emissions other than my own wheezy lungs.

You can cycle 6.5 miles without needing a washroom surely?

For this Surrey job, the 6.5 miles in are almost entirely downhill, so it's just a fringe benefit that they have a room to freshen up with - if the journey were reversed, I wouldn't consider it viable without a shower.

Live where you want, work somewhere else, just join the two up by car.

The job was also close (well, close enough to cycle commute) to our house. If I'm honest we're not really out in the sticks by very much, but the house-job route doesn't go into the local city. All of which was (mostly) deliberate.

People are buying cars that are too big for our small country.
Yesterday it was obvious that for 4/5 of these suv/4x4 type things you can get at lease 5/6/7 small normal sized cars into that stretch of road.

There are more vans delivering stuff from places such as amazon. Buy locally, yes its dearer but you have to look at the bigger picture.

There will always be a need for cars. For example I take my elderly mother out on a Friday, she wants to get out of the house. Travelling by public transport or on my bike is just not an option.

I am hopeful that more people will cycle in the future. I'm seeing families around our area taking their children out for the day on bikes.

We had a talk last night at our WI from a professor. He was saying that there is a blanket over the earth that's slowly heating it up. It is now almost an emergency to change our bad habits and get off the roads, walk more, cycle more and take more public transport. His talk was sobering. However in our particular WI he was preaching mainly to the converted.

Everyone seems to have excuses why excessive car usage is not excessive for them. From my point of view 90% of car usage is excessive.

The only way to alter this is via the pocket.

Zero tolerance policing for road crime

End the massive subsidy from the public purse to car drivers

DT78, as another resident of Southampton, I agree parts of our city road network have become extremely hostile for cyclists... For at least certain times during a typical week.

However, little tweaks to commuting routes can make things far more pleasant and in my case even quicker to get between home and work.

My old route in: https://www.strava.com/routes/21822302
New route in: https://www.strava.com/routes/21822425

My old route home: https://www.strava.com/routes/21822632
My newer typical route home during term time: https://www.strava.com/routes/21822552

I'm not familar with bike-friendly routes north of Shirley, but have you looked at using The Common, Bassett Sports Centre and maybe even Lordwood off-road?

Southampton has become a traffic hellhole over the last ~10 years or so, with jams during the rush hours and school runs, plus so many homes having more cars than they have space for on their drives (so they then park right up on the pavement becoming an obstacle for pedestrians, something which is being looked at by government since I last brought this up).

Personally, for the most part, I hated owning cars. I used them needlessly for stupid little journeys, when they were only really useful for bulk food shopping and the very odd long distance trip. Getting rid of the last car, which did most of its miles doing the above commute, was the best thing I did financially and environmentally.

I’m not familar with bike-friendly routes north of Shirley, but have you looked at using The Common, Bassett Sports Centre and maybe even Lordwood off-road?

Yes definitely doable, as I did this morning! But sometimes I don't have the time / energy to do it or don't fancy riding through the winter slop (its lovely at the moment)
https://www.strava.com/activities/2721556203

Soon I will be doing school and nursery drop offs, so very limited time to get into work. In an ideal world. I'd take a trailer/weehoo drop them off and do the shortest route possible (the gauntlet past the general....) I just don't think its safe enough. Walking is a challenge!

In particular the Rownhams road out to Baddersly is the most hostile, almost without fail if I head along that I will get a punishment pass, or verbal abuse for not using the overgrown/unsafe cycle path.

Southampton didn't used to be this bad. I've commuted by bike in and around town now for 20 years.

The only way to alter this is via the pocket.

Zero tolerance policing for road crime

End the massive subsidy from the public purse to car drivers

I'd also like to see more toll motorways, etc with the money being put into subsidising bus tickets. I'd use the local bus service more if it wasn't so expensive!! Was in France at the beginning of the month, city bus service is subsidised (possible state owned?) and any individual journey is €1.40 with a whole-day pass €3.70 (I think) which is under half the cost that it is here. Got the bus to a local music fest in the next town (6 miles away) recently, 22 min journey cost £21.90 return for 3 of us!! A taxi both ways would only have been slightly more.

Parking on zig-zags, blocking yellow boxes, RLJ, using the left lane on a roundabout to turn right, etc etc.

you can't demand that car drivers obey the law. That's war on the motorist!

From what I read two cities in the UK have decent public transport - ~Edinburgh and London. Whats the difference to other cities? state owned city wide non competitive systems.

Edinburgh is £1.70 on the bus for any journey and IIRC £3.70 for a day ticket ( not sure - its around that). there is about 30 buses an hour past my door.

~Scotrail is not bad as well - getting to my parents by public transport ( leith to Milngavie) is cheaper and quicker by public transport than to drive.

I don't see why it would be so difficult to make large cities Park & Ride only zones - provide huge parking areas in various locations around the city limits and have a number of regular electric/eco-bus routes into the centre and through the suburbs. Restricting the hours within which deliveries can be made would help in reducing the pollution levels and would mean that public transport & active travel infrastructure would need to be decent & affordable, if only for fear of pushing people (and money) out of the centres.

As with others I used to enjoy driving but not any more due to a combination of the quality of the roads, standards of driving and the volume of traffic.

This subject makes me despair. I work in the "Georgian quarter" of Liverpool and everyday I watch as pavements are destroyed through parking and police and wardens walk by. The red light jumping and aggressive driving, often by people busy on there phones, is depressing. Liverpool may win the league this year but they are already at the top of the UK KSI table which is a disgrace. All we seem to do is encourage driving even more. pedestrians and cyclist are threatened and harassed at every opportunity.

I don’t see why it would be so difficult to make large cities Park & Ride only zones

There is really no easy answer. I think cars need to be phased out (the sooner the better) but certainly i don't envy anyone trying to actually do that.

The economists answer would probably revolve around scarcity. Once people realise their scarce resources (time, money, environment, health etc) can be better spent elsewhere, they will.

At this point though, cars are really just a symptom of the way we live and you would probably be better focusing on that and letting the cars disappear naturally.

For instance, the place I used to buy my electronics parts from just moved from a location in a heavily populated, transit accessible, easily walkable (from work or home for a large number of people) to the middle of an industrial estate that is only accessible by car. They got priced out of their previous location because of its attributes. So I can either drive there or order off the web (which is more environmentally evil than leaving the car idling all day, everyday because it comes from China on a plane and is then delivered to me by lorry/van/car etc because they promise 3 day delivery for each single item.)

You can cycle 6.5 miles without needing a washroom surely?

I popped to the local Argos a couple of days ago on the bike to pick up an Ebay delivery. 7.5 miles, didn't break a sweat.

I popped to the local Argos a couple of days ago on the bike to pick up an Ebay delivery. 7.5 miles, didn’t break a sweat.

I suppose that depends on whether you live somewhere flat/ sheltered or somewhere hilly / with a prevailing wind.

7.5 miles will get a sweat going if you're going straight into the wind.

Also, as I touched on above, it depends on the route - this week, I'm in Surrey and the ride TO work is almost exclusively downhill. Conversely, the ride back to the hotel is uphill with a fairly spicey climb for the last three quarters of a mile - the men's toilets at the client for the downhill ride in is fine to freshen up in, but if the ride were the other way round, I wouldn't be comfortable working there after cycling it if the client didn't have a shower.

7.5 miles will get a sweat going if you’re going straight into the wind.

Depends how fast you want to go. I was only shopping so lived up to my name.

Zero tolerance policing for road crime

An article in one of the populist papers the other day:
Driver FURY as speed cameras set to rake in £600,000 PER YEAR!

It was to do with a big new stretch of smart motorway that had just gone live and I was jist reading the article and thinking - there's a really easy way you can avoid paying any money to speed cameras.

You just wouldn't get that in any other walk of life.
Shoplifter FURY as CCTV set to stop them stealing!
Clubber RAGE as CCTV stops them spiking girls drinks!!

Yet with driving it's seen as some sort of divine right to break the law and how dare the authorities try and stop you. Yes, I'd love to see a massive crackdown on driving offences. Driving while DQ'd - straight off to the cells, do not pass go, do not collect your belongings. Massive fines for things like driving while uninsured (because it's often cheaper to not pay insurance and then just pay the £200 fine if caught). And technology now should be able to make it impossible to start a car if you're drunk/drugged or if you're not the registered owner.

Proper investigation into crashes. In a plane or train crash, they don't just say "oh let the insurance sort it out" - they do a full interrogation on the black boxes and other tech, work out what the problems were and fix them. Love to see that one in use on the roads with appropriate punishments.

And technology now should be able to make it impossible to start a car if you’re drunk/drugged or if you’re not the registered owner.

Brother in law works for a coach company, I'm sure he said their coaches have breathlysers and won't start if you're over the alcohol limit, big fan of that.

cougar - we would save even more driving to schools if we got rid of the stupid choice agenda in schooling and everyone just goes to their local school. Everyone walked to my secondary school or got the bus. No one - and I mean no one of the thousand plus pupils was driven to school. No one travelled more than 2 miles to school

cougar – we would save even more driving to schools if we got rid of the stupid choice agenda in schooling and everyone just goes to their local school. Everyone walked to my secondary school or got the bus. No one – and I mean no one of the thousand plus pupils was driven to school. No one travelled more than 2 miles to school

Agree. Admittedly I did go to school in 70's and early 80's but nobody was driven to school. The primary schools were all within a mile and secondary schools with 3 miles so it was a choice of walk or cycle (or rollerskate, it was the 80'S after all)

Transport planner of 20 years here, now living in Sweden, gave up with the UK's transport policy 🙂  (kind of)

It's an incredibly complex issue made worse by more disposable income (2 cars why not huh) , more choice (school is 15km away why not huh) and ironicaly less choice (investment in public transport has been reduced by approx 45% the last ten years and it was terrible anyway) but it basically boils down to political will.

Road building will not fix it (The Downs Thomson Paradox if you are interested) and i won't go into Highway Capacity , Level of Service, Passenger Car units  (size of car does alter capacity, but so does condition of the road, weather, regulation measures on said road etc)   but i will say that Cardiif has l a lot more capacity and it can get much much worse!

The car, currently, even with congestion, the cost to the environment and the pocket etc, is still the best alternative for the majority of people. An alternative must be provided that is faster (as it is time  that is the deciding factor for most with journey choice, not all people, but most, cost is not important, just time)  than the car, and that requires the political will to do it. So vote Green basically!

Anyhow, wait until autonomous vehicles come in, then we (you) are really in the sh*t!

I also happen to live in Cardiff, and avoid driving as much as possible. This includes cycling a hilly 7 miles each way to work (except on Fridays, when I finish early and treat myself to a drive). I have spent a fair bit of time thinking about efficient transportation, and below are some ramblings based on the content of this thread:

Given how miserable it is to drive at the moment, and how short a lot of people's journeys are, I don't know what it would take to get people out of their cars. I understand the point previously made about a driver's perception of traffic being only the end of a longer trip, but the daily traffic jam in Cardiff extends miles up the A470.

I once had the idea that cars should be individually taxed in inverse proportion to their average speed, to disincentivise short journeys that could easily be replaced. However, it does have an obvious flaw, and is functionally about the same as a congestion zone charge.

The incoming Fleet Emissions Standards will make it practically impossible for non-hybrid cars to pass, and also explicitly allow higher emissions for heavier cars. Given this, why would a car manufacturer make a small, lightweight ICE-only car, instead of a heavy, hybrid SUV? Combined with car financing, I see a depressing future ahead of oversized, over-engineered cars that are not designed to last more than 5 years.

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en

I am all for disincentives to driving, but this seems the most miserable way to do it (for all end users). I have thought a bit about what would be the ideal, sustainable vehicle, and it generally reduces down to an ebike. At this point I tell myself to man up and keep pedalling, but I suspect the issue for most would be the weather. Given that a lot of people seem to work somewhere where the norm (now) is to arrive perfectly coiffured and made up, I can see why anything short of a sealed box from door to door is not attractive.

As I see it, a lot of the issues discussed (houses built far from anything useful, roads unpleasant for walking and cycling) are the symptoms of a culture of increasing dependence on cars, and would reverse themselves given the right incentives. I just can't see what it would take - people seem to have an almost infinite patience for sitting in traffic (except when they see a cyclist ahead!), so short of blocking off roads to cars, I'm not sure what would work. Car ownership itself is also quite tedious and expensive, yet we all do it.

A side note about buses - I really wish Cardiff Bus would scale the size of the buses with the demand throughout the day. A couple of the larger roads are clogged most of the day with full-sized buses with about 3 people on each one - by any metric (emissions / particulates per passenger, efficient road usage per passenger, etc) this is not good. And cars letting out buses - I'm all for paying into the road karma bank (as I do make heavy withdrawals from time to time), but why would I let a bus through and then sit behind it as it stops and starts, breathing in nasty diesel fumes? I've also had too many run-ins on my bike with bus drivers, where only my cycling skill has saved me from getting knocked off or run over. It's a shame, but I really don't have much sympathy.

Thanks for that, twrch. Genuinely really helpful.

Completely agree about the school situation.
Our local primary school is around a corner. It's a 3-4 minute walk away (even for a toddler). Yet all our neighbours take their children to schools that are a mile away (one neighbour does try and walk there). Another neighbour takes her 3 children to a school 6 miles away. I don't understand this.

Fuel is not expensive enough for people to change their habits. We all think £1.30 / litre is expensive, but bottled water is often more expensive!! When we get to £10 / litre people will be forced to make changes.

Or the less penal route is to encourage people out of cars, which is going to take years (probably generations). More/better public transport, safer cycling, more working from home.

If you watch any rush hour traffic, the vast majority of cars have only single occupant, so people are not lift sharing or going out of their way to reduce their costs / footprint.

The governments have to want to make change - they are approaching it very softly today (clearly it's not a vote winner to tell someone their freedom will be compromised), so a change of approach is needed. Make more places traffic free. Force people to walk the last mile to their office / school, charge for leaving cars parked up when at work, encourage people to think and make different choices, get the VIPs to set examples (give the mayor a Pinarello not a Bentley).

Fuel is not expensive enough for people to change their habits. We all think £1.30 / litre is expensive, but bottled water is often more expensive!! When we get to £10 / litre people will be forced to make changes.

Brexit may get a few hundred people protesting, £10/litre will get you a revolution.

Cars are an odd one. Rack the cost of rush hour driving up would help the congestion problem (eg time based congestion charging and I might take the bike to work more. But I'd still have my car, for mountain biking and pursuing other hobbies, visiting my parents, shopping (which could be replaced easily by home delivery).

Spreading out the problem is key - flexitime and remote working - plus everything thats been said about schools upthread. Our roads may be clogged for a few hours a day, but outside of major cities (where public trans and cycling make sense and are already used) they are under utilised.

Society has taught us to go to work at 8-9 for the same five days*, then drive to the shopping centre or the beach at 10 on a weekend. with the great variance in day length at this latitude, we cant even use the excuse of getting up with the sun for this.

* anything else is "shift work" and gets looked down upon by many

Until recently we had 1 car and I'd take it once a week and bike all the other days to work. However it's a bit inflexible (12 mile commute takes a while) doo we've gotten a second car. I feel a bit sick about it and I'm determined not to use it.

In general, the current situation is madness to me. Everyone owns at least one car which they use for say 1-2 hours a day on average and otherwise it gathers dust. It's a massive depreciating asset that also has a big environmental impact to manufacture and use. They have a limited lifespan too after which they are mostly on the scrapheap.

I like the idea of renting a car when you need to use one. Imagine just being able to walk up to any car, hop in and drive (or be driven by computers). This stuff isn't as far away as you might think I reckon .. most new cars are keyless and call home for software updates so technically a key could open any car for rent. Perhaps the uber model of surcharge at peak time would kick in, but that extra cost could be offset by ride sharing.

When we get to £10 / litre people will be forced to make changes.

Yes, but will they have any options? It'll take years to build transport links, increase housing density somthat people can live closer to work/school/shops etc. That's assuming you can build the type of housing that will serve people's needs that they can afford.

Plus it'll just mean that rich people can afford even more mahooosive range rovers once hoi polloi are off the road.

Could do the other stuff before we need it, see if that will allow people to make better choices.

Seems like we are more likely to wait til everything comes to a screeching halt and then try and fix a 20 year problem in a week cos we are really good at that.

Road charging will be coming in soon. With the increasing switchover to EV the revenue reduction means that government has to start road charging.
I’ve been talking over the last 9 months to various bodies in Canada, Australia and Singapore and they’re all starting the process towards road charging.
Whether our one issue UK Government can see this and get the infrastructure in place on time will be ‘interesting’.

If you watch any rush hour traffic, the vast majority of cars have only single occupant, so people are not lift sharing or going out of their way to reduce their costs / footprint.

Four directors of a company I worked for while at uni (so this is going back 20+ years when the company car thing was a big incentive) all lived within a mile of each other. They all separately drove their company cars the 2 miles or so to work, all arriving within 10 minutes of each other. Same on the way home.

The idea of sharing a car would have been a huge blow to their alpha male identity. The company was paying the bills so for them, there was zero incentive to do anything to reduce usage. Insane, even back then.

chomolly - what is needed is not to do that overnight but over a long period - 10 - 20 years. Slowly take the subsidy from cars into public transport and then price cars out while using the revenue to improve public transport

It make commuting less viable as well so will have added good effects like making commuter villages affordable again and so on

Locally to me we have a ridiculous situation where rural workers live in the big towns having been priced out of the rural areas and thus commute into the country and the town / city workers commute from the country into the city.

Road charging will be coming in soon. With the increasing switchover to EV the revenue reduction means that government has to start road charging.

Inversely charged by distance and time of journey. Airlines, trains - hell even Uber - do supply/demand based pricing so roads should be the same. Expensive between 6-8am and 5-7pm to discourage school run / commute etc and inversely proportional to distance. Shorter the distance the higher the price to discourage those 2km car journeys.

chomolly – what is needed is not to do that overnight but over a long period – 10 – 20 years. Slowly take the subsidy from cars into public transport and then price cars out while using the revenue to improve public transport

It make commuting less viable as well so will have added good effects like making commuter villages affordable again and so on

Yes, that was where I was going. The trouble is, we tend not to do that. We will continue down the road we are on (no pun intended) until we are completely stuffed and then we'll look around for a solution to the immediately problem, not the real problem.
If we create viable options now, we need do nothing else.

Although if we make commuting less viable, who will live in the affordable commuter villages?

The people who work in the area that at the moment have to commute from towns

Part of my family come from a small rural parish in shropshire where they have a farm. They have lived in the parish since the 16th century at least. The owners of the farm retired and had two sons. there are two cottages on the farm. the two sons could not afford to buy anything in the parish or even close to it as it has become commuter territory for Birmingham. the parents ended up giving one cottage each to the boys so they could continue to live and work on the farm and moved to birmingham themselves.

Before cars, people lived convenient for work

People got a job in a local factory and worked there all their lives, and the wives didn't work.

So good for transport, not great for life experiences IMO. I'd go mad.

The people who work in the area that at the moment have to commute from towns

Oh, right. They'll become villages again. I wouldn't guarantee they'll be any more affordable though. Retirees, footballers, high tech types will probably see to that!

People got a job in a local factory and worked there all their lives, and the wives didn’t work.

First part true, second part not so much. One side of my family didn't travel more than a few miles from where they started nearly 200 years previously. You could wave at about 30 relatives on one bus route.
The wives all worked though, they had to.

So good for transport, not great for life experiences IMO. I’d go mad.

These day with telecommuting etc, you can have all the good but avoid most of the bad.

Some of the answers were early in the thread.
I commute a whole 2 miles to my office, pick up a van and then travel the UK and a bit of Europe. I do around 30 kmiles a year. Traffic isn't that bad but then I like to start early and finish early.
That's fine until I turn up at offices where I can't disturb the staff as they'll be on the phones so can I arrive at 5pm?
So I then have to travel in rush hour, add to the the queues just because companies insist the staff are there, when in this day and age it's just not needed.
I'll be using equipment that weighs approximately 60kg so public transport is out.
The office monkeys can I assume use a phone/computer that since the 1980s pretty much every home has.
So why the need to travel into a major town/city to operate those devices?