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forkboy84 posted:I live 15 miles from a town that the bus takes nearly an hour to travel. Still don't need a car baybay I, unfortunately, wouldn't have a job or be able to take my girlfriend to her work in hospitals without my car. Much as I dislike it. Also if you take a bus it's around about a 5 pound trip there and back. Car costs a whack to get, but ours was old so car tax was 35 quid for the year. But it costs more in transport to bus to places than it does in parking fees in a lot of cases. Take Edinburgh. It would have cost me and the gf 300 pound to get 2 tickets there and back, whereas a car trip cost us about... 65 for the city centre parking and fuel? Working in tourism also means that I can't get the bus if I'm working at the lead mine for some of it.
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Apr 17, 2022 13:36
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Mebh posted:Even if i got a taxi at peak to and from work every single day with 255 working days a year that's £18 x255 = £4590. It would definitely be cheaper for me not to have a car, but in rural areas there are typically not enough taxis to rely on like that.
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Apr 17, 2022 13:42
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You do not spend £1300 a year on maintenance for a car, where did you get that figure from? I've never had a car cost that. For reference i've just put a car through a service + mot and even with 2 new tyres it still came in under £300. And your estimate for fuel mileage is way off for what you're suggesting. I've done a holiday trip from the Bournemouth to Inverness this year and even with commuting I've not done more than 6k miles. So if you remove nearly 2k from your estimate it leaves you with about £1k of available funds for vacations. Depending on how expensive a vehicle you buy the repayments will also come to an end after a few years and you'll get that £1800 per year back as well. At that point its more expensive to not have it to continue what you want to do. Further the option of having a car opens up way more opportunities. You can decide on a Sunday morning to drive off into the countryside to go for a walk in places miles from train stations.
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Apr 17, 2022 13:46
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Oh dear me posted:It would definitely be cheaper for me not to have a car, but in rural areas there are typically not enough taxis to rely on like that. I mean even a taxi ride of 15 mins cost about 25 quid one evening when we didn't want to catch the buss, so it also depends on where you are.
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Apr 17, 2022 13:47
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Mebh posted:Sorry for the stupid huge post, this kinda got out of hand... lol you didnt even include the candles cost.
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Apr 17, 2022 14:32
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Everyone should commute on ebike or motorbike 
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Apr 17, 2022 14:34
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Mebh posted:
Oh dear me posted:It would definitely be cheaper for me not to have a car, but in rural areas there are typically not enough taxis to rely on like that. There are few taxis round my way - unless you prebook you can wait 3 hours or more and there are very few to pre-book. Cost to go about 20 miles (approx distance of nearest train stations) 3-4 years ago was over £50 one way, I dread to think now. From Bristol Airport 2 years ago was over £100 (approx 35-40 miles away) I really think rural areas could do with some kind of properly-managed, official 'uber' style provision. There's not even any ubers to be had for miles around. Out in the styx, there really aren't 'car pool' options. Lungboy posted:Everyone should commute on ebike or motorbike I had a friend who thought he was going to do that. He sold his car on retirement and signed up for an evening course at Cardiff University. He is an expert motorcyclist of many years' standing but after a few very hairy rides late back from Cardiff in the pouring rain along the dual carriageway, he said 'never again'. Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 14:43
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I've got a Smart 451 and really like it. Only £30 road tax too. Will probably get a cheap and nasty motorbike once I have a horse simply so I don't have to play parking roulette twice a day
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Apr 17, 2022 15:01
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Mebh posted:
depends how much you use it, 10k a year when your not commuting is probably an overestimate, your more likely to only do 5k Mebh posted:£500 / year for insurance depends on the car, your age, how long you've had your license etc. Mine is £310 for example and it goes down each year. Mebh posted:Road tax, £200? Again depends on the car but that sounds about right, for most vehicles. Be less for small emission vehicles though. Mebh posted:Maintenance and servicing? Around £1300 per year on average. Woh Woh Woh where did you get this idea from? I've had a few close to that but that's just a really bad year when all the tyes need replacing at once and a bunch of other stuff and I didn't do it ahead of time. A normal mot + service is £250-£500. Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 15:06
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Mebh posted:Small car fuel cost would be like £2k a year (est 10k miles) Some numbers, from experience: £3,000 gets you a ten year old Fiesta 1.4 diesel (manual tho, not auto, add another K or so) with 51K on the clock. A 2012 car with that mileage is still very good. Tax is £20 a year because it's low emission and it will crack 70mpg on a long, carefully driven journey. Google tells me 10,000 miles at 50mpg (urban/average use) is approx 757 litres, or £1,500 at current silly rates. Insurance very much depends but my last Focus 1.6 was about £280. I am oop north tho. Maintenance and repairs every year could be £100 or it could be £1,000. There's no way to tell until it happens. Edit: I put the actual car price rather than finance costs because I don't know your situation. If you need to borrow, obviously borrow as little as possible and make sure you try the band game - borrowing £4,999 or £5,001 may get you a lower APR than borrowing exactly £5,000. In my experience, Sainsbury's have historically been cheapest. Biggus Dickus fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 15:08
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Cycling is fine, as long as you treat it as if you're a pedestrian who's temporarily dipping into the road system. The people who get properly hosed up are the ones who behave as if they're a car and try to use crossings / roundabouts as if they have the same presence and visibility as a ton of metal.
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Apr 17, 2022 15:33
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Mebh posted:Cars are super useful i get that. Especially if you commute. What I'm taking about is all the other uses. E: And as others have pointed out it's probably not quite as expensive as you've been thinking, especially if you don't have to commute (and if you've got a Costco membership, make use of the cheaper petrol)
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Apr 17, 2022 15:34
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Thanks for the responses! Dang. My family isn't dying so I didn't include the candle cost. As for maintenance that was from the first hit on Google and the AA website. Ok so it's likely to be a hell of a lot cheaper until i consider adding my partner but still quite an expense. Something to look into once I've paid off the loan I have or to quickly sort out commuting if it goes tits up.
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Apr 17, 2022 15:50
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Angrymog posted:I've got a Smart 451 and really like it. Only £30 road tax too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8
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Apr 17, 2022 16:14
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I would just say, if it were actually cheaper to catch a taxi to and from work every day than to own a car, don't you think more people would have thought of that and be doing it already? Re: your last paragraph that is. Obviously yeah otherwise its going to vary based on many factors. Saying that given we sold our car when we moved to London... feedmegin fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 16:15
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Yet another thing we lost in 2019 was a proposed nationalised electric car sharing scheme. Zipcar and the others are another big reason why I don't need to own a car, and pushing that sort of scheme to at least bigger regional towns (along of course with massive expansion of rural and semi rural bus services and trains) would have completely changed the game both environmentally and economically for a massive chunk of the country.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:34
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Jedit posted:No, they'll just say that the Ukrainians are legal immigrants. It's only illegal immigrants who get shipped off to Africa. Asylum seekers are by definition not illegal immigrants.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:36
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feedmegin posted:Asylum seekers are by definition not illegal immigrants. But but but jumping the queue safe countries people smugglers.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:40
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Yet another thing we lost in 2019 was a proposed nationalised electric car sharing scheme. Zipcar and the others are another big reason why I don't need to own a car, and pushing that sort of scheme to at least bigger regional towns (along of course with massive expansion of rural and semi rural bus services and trains) would have completely changed the game both environmentally and economically for a massive chunk of the country. Yeah those were amazing in Europe. Came back late night to Hamburg airport and found the trains were cancelled due to maintenance, everyone from the flight just split up into rideshare cars. Got offered a lift and had a lovely chat with a German artist. I dunno. I just feel this immense social pressure to learn to drive. Like I've failed or something as an adult. I'm nearly 40 and I've never even tried.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:57
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I can think of at least three friends of that age or older who’ve never learnt to drive. If you’ve never particularly needed to then it doesn’t seem weird that you wouldn’t have invested all the time, money, and effort it takes to learn.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:01
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Just reminded me of blabla car. It's car sharing but probably not on a daily commute scale. I've never used it but a Moldavian friend has been all round Europe using it. This is the UK site: https://www.blablacar.co.uk/ Basically, if you want to go from A to B, you can search for anyone who has advertised that they are driving that route on a particular date. Likewise, you can sign up to the site to offer rides and they do check you out. TACD posted:I can think of at least three friends of that age or older who’ve never learnt to drive. If you’ve never particularly needed to then it doesn’t seem weird that you wouldn’t have invested all the time, money, and effort it takes to learn. I took lessons in my 30s when I lived in London. Failed my test 4 times, each time on something different and on things that never happen 'in real life'. Eg one time, I was doing the 3 point turn and two cars entered the same side street from opposite directions when I had the nose of my car to the pavement. It seemed to me that there was plenty of room for each car to take it in turns to go past so I could complete the manoeuvre - I did not have room to complete the manoeuvre with the cars either side of me. BUT it turned out both the other two cars were also on test so none of us were allowed to wave or otherwise indicate that we were allowing the others to pass or would wait or whatever. We all sat there like lemons for several minutes (which seemed like hours) not knowing what to do. All 3 of us failed for 'undue hesitancy' (according to my instructor). Even back then in the 1990s, it was costing me £38 for a 2 hour lesson and as I lived in central London, 2 hour lessons were essential to be able to get far enough from the centre to get out of 2nd gear. After the 4th fail I decided I wasn't going to waste anymore money on this totally unnecessary skill which I had little interest in. Also, coupled with my propensity for being so bored my mind would wander (same happens in job interviews when the interviewer asks long-winded pointless questions about where you see yourself in 5 years time). My family kept saying "come and do your test in Small Town Wales with 1 roundabout" which I thought would be pretty useless. Unless I could do Hyde Park Corner without freaking out, what would be the point? Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 17:02
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Mebh posted:Yeah those were amazing in Europe. Came back late night to Hamburg airport and found the trains were cancelled due to maintenance, everyone from the flight just split up into rideshare cars. Got offered a lift and had a lovely chat with a German artist. Learning to drive isn't an easy or cheap task on its own either. I'm in the middle of doing so and it's looking to cost me around £1500 - driving instructors have all hiked their prices because of the pent-up demand from covid (and more recently fuel price increases) - it's now like £35 p/h to learn, and you need ~30-40 hours of instruction minimum, plus the test only have a ~50% pass rate...
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Apr 17, 2022 17:06
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I’d not worry about it Mebh. If you think it would be useful for you and you have the money and time then it can’t hurt, but I’ve not done it yet and don’t plan to until I’d see more benefit. Im a decent bit younger than you but my usual social circles go from 21ish to about 45 and plenty of folk can’t drive, and no one seems arsed about it.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:07
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Mebh posted:Small car fuel cost would be like £2k a year (est 10k miles) As others have said, yeah, most of this seems about right. Insurance can be anywhere from £250/year to £2k+ depending on your circumstances, where you live, what car it is, how old you are, how long you've been driving. Maintenance likely to be less per year BUT you should have an emergency fund of like £2k in case of catastrophe if you can. There are a bunch of different things that can go wrong particularly with second-hand older cars that can very easily cost £500 upwards and multiple of those can happen in a year if you're unlucky. It's less likely there'll be anything too bad happen, but single things like a timing belt snapping (again, shouldn't really happen, has never happened to me but did to my brother) can cause £2k of damage. If you're buying an older car you might find there have been some things neglected by the current owners - like when you buy it the tyres and brakes might both be at end of life so that's immediately a few hundred quid, but sets you up well for the next ~3 years. As for purchasing a second-hand car, it's always worked out well for me to buy ~10y/o VWs or Audis with 70-130k miles on them, for £500-1500. They're built quite well and because they're a bit more "premium" people tend to look after them reasonably well. I don't think I've ever had to spend more than about £500 in a year on one (biggest single repairs I think about £350) and they typically last ~3-5 years before it's better to scrap them. Typically the car has cost me like £1k and I've spent £1k in maintenance (including MOTs) over 3 years and then I've scrapped it because it's starting to cost too much to put through the MOTs. That said, I did also have a Ford Puma (the original kind, not the new "crossover" thing) once. Bought it because they were cheap at the time and really well-reviewed. Was a cracking little car, great handling. Unfortunately the newest one you'd find now would be 21 years old so probably not in great shape, but I do think Fords are supposed to have really good handling for what they are and they're typically cheap to repair. A guy at work used to take the piss out of my Puma, til he looked up the specs and found out it was quicker to 60 than his Subaru Impreza. Not that I cared, but he was a "car guy" and really did, so it was quite funny.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:25
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I've gotten a Fiat 500 that has been wonderful, even with swapping all the tires and getting the brakes changed. Cost of 1500 initially, and then even with all the adds, it comes to about 1800.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:33
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Driving is stressful and expensive yeah, genuinely if you don't see the need don't bother, your value as a human is not conditional on being able to operate a rusty heap of metal unless that is a forklift in which case you are obviously the coolest person in the universe.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:41
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I've always been visually impaired to some degree and when the idea of driving first came up I was recently diagnosed and we thought I might be blind in a few years so it didn't seem worth the expense and effort of trying to learn, only to have it yanked away. Turns out I was still legally eligible to drive up to about five years ago which is hilarious considering how poor my eyesight was even then. Now they won't let me even try just because I'm partially sighted! loving gatekeepers. The main reason I started carrying a symbol cane is so the next time a cyclist whisks silently out of nowhere and barely misses me and then turns to swear at me maybe they'll feel bad  Still haven't had the chance to respond to some grumpy dickhead going 'are you blind?!' But I'm ready.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:44
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I asked the partner about a motorbike and she called them organ donation machines. I love my scooter tho =(
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Apr 17, 2022 17:45
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All this talk of learning to drive. I haven't driven for nearly a decade but really want to get back into it. Has anyone ever had some type of refresher lesson to get their knowledge/confidence back up?
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Apr 17, 2022 17:46
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bessantj posted:All this talk of learning to drive. I haven't driven for nearly a decade but really want to get back into it. Has anyone ever had some type of refresher lesson to get their knowledge/confidence back up? Most driving instructors will do those with you for the same rate as normal lessons (since it's the same time used). It's not an uncommon request they get - fairly common, especially from people who learnt to drive abroad and have moved to the UK.
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Apr 17, 2022 17:51
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OwlFancier posted:Driving is stressful and expensive yeah, genuinely if you don't see the need don't bother, your value as a human is not conditional on being able to operate a rusty heap of metal unless that is a forklift in which case you are obviously the coolest person in the universe. Yep. I really wish I didn't have to drive. I still feel guilty about the cyclist yeaterday.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:06
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Most driving instructors will do those with you for the same rate as normal lessons (since it's the same time used). It's not an uncommon request they get - fairly common, especially from people who learnt to drive abroad and have moved to the UK. This is where I am at the moment. I have a Canadian license and I drive when I'm back in Canada all the time but I only ever learned to drive automatic. We tried buying an automatic here but couldn't find one for a reasonable price, and the double whammy of learning all the new road rules while driving on the other side of the road AND having to learn standard has prevented me from just making the leap (which my wife did years ago for her work). I've decided that I'm finally going to take the plunge and book some driving lessons once I have a bit more free time in the summer, but I'm really curious how much time and effort it will take for me to be able to get to the level that I can pass the test. A lot of people have told me that it'll basically be 80% getting used to driving standard and 20% getting used to driving in the UK.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:06
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Mebh posted:I asked the partner about a motorbike and she called them organ donation machines.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:11
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Most driving instructors will do those with you for the same rate as normal lessons (since it's the same time used). It's not an uncommon request they get - fairly common, especially from people who learnt to drive abroad and have moved to the UK. I need to research my local driving instructors. Owning a car is so expensive but at the moment I'm working a lot and a car would be a huge advantage.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:17
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Driving chat. I said earlier I won't ever drive probably. Forgot to mention I used to help others practice for their driving tests, especially the hazard perception test, which you can check out here: https://www.safedrivingforlife.info/free-practice-tests/hazard-perception-test/ Had this couple in one time, husband and wife, and they used all the tests we had. Then when Im closing, they left and I saw them get into a car that was parked outside and they left. Mentioned it to my mum, she said the rumor was that they both lost their licence for repeated drunk driving, hence why they had to do it again. The WTF was why they were still driving.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:02
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WhatEvil posted:As for purchasing a second-hand car, it's always worked out well for me to buy ~10y/o VWs or Audis with 70-130k miles on them, for £500-1500. They're built quite well and because they're a bit more "premium" people tend to look after them reasonably well. Funnily enough I’ve found the opposite. They’re a desirable premium brand so a lot of people buy them who can’t really afford them, so skimp on maintenance and parts as much as possible. A telltale sign is tyres. Few red flags are bigger than a really expensive BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Jaguar/Range Rover on the cheapest, nastiest tyres available.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:07
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I could kind of do with something like a Captur for larp events - I used to have a Fiesta but it didn't quite have the boot space I needed, nor the ground clearance for some of the sites I go on. But that's like my only real use case for a car, so taxis and trains it is. Plus once I got a first class upgrade back up north for a tenner which included the first class lounge at Euston, and I dream of one day lucking out with that again.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:30
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Mebh posted:I dunno. I just feel this immense social pressure to learn to drive. Like I've failed or something as an adult. I'm nearly 40 and I've never even tried. I still remember going round employment agencies after graduating and everyone looking at my travel range and saying "You should really get a car," like getting a couple thousand for the deposit and a few hundred a month for the repayments / petrol / upkeep is something everyone can just do. Also assuming everyone can drive.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:39
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Cars are really great, but actually it would be better for me if fewer other people drove and got in my way so yeah I agree cars are bad and you can all do without them
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Apr 17, 2022 19:41
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I don’t think it’s a contradiction to believe that cars are pretty awesome and fun but a car-dependant society and living spaces that prioritise the car over all else is really awful. Car culture can piss right off though.
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Apr 17, 2022 19:52
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