can your family get by without a car?

[susyp]

I grew up without a car and I have to say it was quite a pain, especially as I got older, I had to rely on friend's parents for lifts. But then again I was a bit of a brat as a teenager so maybe there would have been other ways had I been more flexible!. Was very very happy to get my first car though! All those walks up the hill from the supermarket, hours on the train back from holiday. arg.

Susypx

[VALFR59]

Definitely not!!

I love the freedom to go where I want when I want!

It's a chance to avoid the rush hour on transports when I am not working and I want to go somewhere with my toddler.

Also great to go back to my country and able to bring things (I couldn't do that by train).

Maybe if one day I live in a country with more thant few weeks of nice/dry/warm weather , It would be more easily for me to walk or to ride a bike :) .... but I do have to agree that I am a bit lazy!

[WorkingMummy]

I have three between ages of 4.5 years and 9 months. We bought our very first car 4 weeks ago.

London is the easiest place in the country to not have a car. We have so many parks on our doorstep, so much to do in London and such good public transport links, there's no need. All my friends kept telling me I would need a car, but I really didn't. Even the half hour walk to nursery was a pleasure and good for the kids. When it rained, we had our hoods. We've done many days out by train and last summer we did a weekend at Ramsgate, all by train and bus.

Main reason we bought was for holidays, mainly the long haul drives to Switzerland (in-laws) and Newcastle (one of my sisters). We previously hired/borrowed for that, but now we have a third child, I decided our needs were too specific and hiring two or three times a year with a very exact specification too much hassle. So we have an S-max now.

We still do the nursery on foot there and back. Even in the recent freeze. And I refuse to drive to any supermarket. When you are not in the habit of going to them, supermarkets shout "very grim" from a mile off. It's delivered-in or I go to the local shops on foot.

I once stayed with my sister in Surrey when my first child was about 14 months. THERE I nearly went mental. Zero facilities, not even a swing and no buses at all. There was occasionally a horse to look at in a field at the bottom of the road but that was it. You absolutely do need a car outside London.

[oimissus]

we have a small car and I find it handy to have the choice of how to get about - for example, we took our books back to Canada Water library today, which we could easily do by train, but it was cold and I wanted to go to Tesco's as well to get some bulky/heavy stuff - so the car made better sense. Going into or across town weekdays/evenings - always public transport.

If you're going to get a car, get something small and cheap to run - parking is your biggest nightmare and unless you have more than 2 you really don't need a big car - I have friends with 2 who have a Golf and have done for years, others have a Fiesta which does them fine. Met a friend at the Horniman recently, she in her estate (2 kids) had to drive round for ages and park miles away, we nipped into a space right outside the gates. I mean, if you're going to drive for convenience, it makes sense for it to actually be convenient! (It was bloody freezing on this particular day, trailing across the park with a toddler dragging her heels didn't really appeal.)

[AllyCat]

Hello - I hope it's OK to jump on this thread.....

I'm about to join Zipcar and wondered if there was anyone that had any promo codes, or indeed get a freebie if they recommend someone.... thought it might be nice for someone to get something for nothing!

PM me if you can help, and I can pass on my details!

Thanks

Ally

[newtoedf]

We have 2 kids, 5 and 2 and are very happily car-free. We gave up our car when we moved to London when our eldest was tiny as we were spending more time worrying about tax, insurance, parking etc than actually driving. We use the bus a lot, walk, cycle, train and take taxis but figure we are still much better off than paying for a car.

I like the fact that travelling by public transport I can spend some time focussing on the kids while we get places, the journeys are generally fun rather than stressful. For Oimisuss's Canada water trip we'd have gone by train, walked over to tesco and got a taxi home with the bulky stuff. Shopping generally is mostly Internet-based.

For a journey to my folks in Scotland, it is taxi to Euston and train every time. We use a firm that provides car seats which helps.

We love our camping trips and will hire a car for a week long trip with the big tent but use zip car for weekend trips. Because you only pay for the time you use the car and the price includes fuel, zip car is still cheaper for a weekend away.

Basically, not having a car suits us just fine, to a certain extent we restrict what we do, ie. the kids don't do activities that we can't easily get to on public transport but I'm not that keen to start running a chauffeur service either...

[canela]

what do you mean you only pay for the time you use the car? i thought you paid by day, i.e. it would be 3 days hire for a friday evening - sunday evening trip?

[newtoedf]

Sorry, I mean that when you hire a car normally you pay by the day so if you want to leave on Saturday morning and return on Sunday night you might end up paying for Friday and Monday too to allow for pick up and drop off. With zip car you'd just book it for the specific hours you needed, eg. 9am Saturday to 10pm Sunday, it can make quite a difference.

[canela]

ok. thanks.

[canela]

my lovely mum is donating her old car, but I must admit I did enjoy being carless. is a bit of a hassle sometimes, but has its joys. i just prefer train journeys any day.

[LizzieF]

Mr F here. Thought I'd bump this interesting discussion. Anyone have any more thoughts? We're also considering going carless with two kids (3 and nearly 5)... Mrs F wants to go the zipcar way

[kittysailing]

The only issue with the zip car when using them is the lack of car seats - I find it a bit of a palava since having 2 kids to drag seats in and out of shed when I hire a zip car for the day or weekend - I've brought up with them the idea of dropping off seats into pre-booked cars but they said there wasn't the demand.

[alieh]

Totally agree about the car seats. It is the pain of hauling them in and out of the car, but also the storage space. Once we had two toddler sized car seats to deal with it it really became more hassle than we could be bothered with.

We bought a used Ford Focus and have really loved having it, after being very happy carless in London for over 10 years. We only use it a couple of times each weekend and not at all during the week, but it has been amazing to have in those times. We have also done more day trips out of London on the weekends and there is so much to do within an hour of south London!

We still prefer to take the train/public transport whenever possible but there are time when the car has been invaluable.

[NicoleS]

We don't have a car and neither of us even have driving licenses. We have always managed fine without one, even now that we have a 1-year-old. I walk locally, cycle for a bit further afield and use public transport and trains for going away for the weekend etc. I think we find it easier than most would because we've never had a car so we're not used to the convenience. It's normally a problem only once or twice a year - either because of going somewhere quite remote or because we need to buy something bulky. My husband occasionally suggests doing his test so that we can hire cars for those times but I don't know if he will ever get round to it.

[RoLo1]

In terms of the question of cost, I calculated our costs of owning a car as around ?1200 per year (cost of buying it 8 years ago, MOT, insurance, tax, annually but not petrol which is around ?30 every 3/4 weeks). Interesting to see the other calculations taking into account car clubs and occasional taxis, as I was wondering how much we could justify spending on our next car (husband has a hankering for something fancier in the future, I am anti-flashy).

Obv we don't own a Lamborghini, but it's seen us through house moves, trips to Ireland, and having kids, so it seems like we probably would have spent around the same per annum on alternatives.

[susyp]

with a zip car - what about one of those travel car seats? i have one and it's pretty light and easy. Not overly convinced it's a safe as a proper car seat for a motorway though perhaps. thinking of going zip car way also.

susypx