What % will keep driving cars instead of feed their families?

[mjr]

Over on the mothership, another thread on fuel prices where some suggested that just maybe lots of unnecessary single-occupancy car use wasn't essential to modern life has been closed down because some react to any threat to their genital compensation device with insults, assumptions and repeated punctuation marks.

But what I'd like to continue here is this point from @DCLane:

I can see people choosing between food, gas/electric, petrol rather than looking at substitutes. More cars on the road than usual, but also more food banks opening.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cost-of-fuel.283757/page-16#post-6681365

Do you think many people are going to choose fuelling their car over feeding their family, rather than ride a bike, walk or use public transport where some of the cost is paid from taxes?

Edit to add: and to be clear, I do not mean stopping the people who drive as part of work or live 40 miles away on a route not served by scheduled transport. I mean people who drive distances they could walk or ride and who still "go for a drive" as a leisure activity.

 

[matticus]

Edit to add: and to be clear, I do not mean stopping the people who drive as part of work or live 40 miles away on a route not served by scheduled transport. I mean people who drive distances they could walk or ride and who still "go for a drive" as a leisure activity.

What about the people who have to drive 3 miles with a piano every day. Eh? You bloody facist. You must be in dreamland!!!

 

[qigong chimp]

Edit to add: and to be clear, I do not mean stopping the people who... live 40 miles away on a route not served by scheduled transport.

Why on earth not?
Isn't the decision to do that (live at great distance from work off public transport routes) made possible only by the contrived convenience or artificial affordability - costs externalised onto the public purse/environment - of private motoring? And isn't that, precisely, unsustainable?

I'm not saying round them all up, make them dig their own graves and bury them alive with their stinking cars - yet, anyway - but perhaps to begin with we could transfer all the costs of motoring onto the... motorist?

 

[AuroraSaab]

A lot of people would rather live near where they work but can't afford to. And many of them would rather use public transport than drive. Subsidising and extending the public transport system, and making it safer, would be a good start in encouraging people to use their cars less or to be one car families.

 

[BoldonLad]

Over on the mothership, another thread on fuel prices where some suggested that just maybe lots of unnecessary single-occupancy car use wasn't essential to modern life has been closed down because some react to any threat to their genital compensation device with insults, assumptions and repeated punctuation marks.

But what I'd like to continue here is this point from @DCLane:

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cost-of-fuel.283757/page-16#post-6681365

Do you think many people are going to choose fuelling their car over feeding their family, rather than ride a bike, walk or use public transport where some of the cost is paid from taxes?

Edit to add: and to be clear, I do not mean stopping the people who drive as part of work or live 40 miles away on a route not served by scheduled transport. I mean people who drive distances they could walk or ride and who still "go for a drive" as a leisure activity.

I am sure there will be SOME selfish individuals who will do just that, just as there are SOME selfish individuals who indulge other "enjoyments" at the expense of their own and/or families well-being, but, I doubt they will be in the majority. As for "many" it depends what you mean by "many", ie, 100's, 1,000's ?

 

[mjr]

I am sure there will be SOME selfish individuals who will do just that, just as there are SOME selfish individuals who indulge other "enjoyments" at the expense of their own and/or families well-being, but, I doubt they will be in the majority. As for "many" it depends what you mean by "many", ie, 100's, 1,000's ?

What % do you think?

 

[qigong chimp]

A lot of people would rather live near where they work but can't afford to. And many of them would rather use public transport than drive. Subsidising and extending the public transport system, and making it safer, would be a good start in encouraging people to use their cars less or to be one car families.

With respect: bollox I disagree.

https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/...urneys in Britain,cycled in around 25 minutes).

 

[Deleted member 28]

At least over on this side people can't go crying to Mommy and get things closed down. 🙄

 

[matticus]

With respect: bollox I disagree.

https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/wiki/cycling-is-not-practical-for-the-transportation-or-commuting-needs-of-most-people#:~:text=20% of journeys in Britain,cycled in around 25 minutes).

As well as that info (i.e. loads of people already work within walking/cycling range),

there have been studies showing people are quite happy with (roughly) a 1-hour drive to work; so even if they could afford to live closer, they move further away to get into a bigger/nicer house. So for those people, making driving less convenient (e.g. slower) would make them live closer to work (or work closer to home!).

 

[Deleted member 28]

I doubt many will choose to starve their children in order to take the Jag out for a Sunday afternoon jolly do you?

If people are struggling to fuel their cars then I would imagine they may think twice about driving a few hundred yards to the shops or driving their kids a short journey to school but I doubt anything will change massively.

Those who in your opinion driving these cock extension vehicles can probably afford to carry on doing so I would imagine or else they wouldn't have them in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 28]

Why on earth not?
Isn't the decision to do that (live at great distance from work off public transport routes) made possible only by the contrived convenience or artificial affordability - costs externalised onto the public purse/environment - of private motoring? And isn't that, precisely, unsustainable?

I'm not saying round them all up, make them dig their own graves and bury them alive with their stinking cars - yet, anyway - but perhaps to begin with we could transfer all the costs of motoring onto the... motorist?

Which one of the 1000's of mobile phone sites should I choose to live by then?

And what happens if that one doesn't fail but one that's 50 miles away does?

Dreamland!

 

[Deleted member 121]

There has always been some people who choose X activity over food for them and/or their families such as drug addicts (including alcoholics). It is suggested that up 1 million drivers are uninsured, taxed and without a road worthiness certificate, even in the "good" times... There will always be those selfish bastards who put themselves in front of anybody else, sometimes even their family regardless of boom or bust periods... That being said, i still don't think people putting an extra £20-30 in their tanks is going to change very much in the grand scheme of things, whether that is for leisure or commuting. Ultimately, Bus prices will rise, Train prices ALWAYS rise regardless and so the average working family is going to be paying more whatever they do. Sure, some may be in a position to walk and cycle, but realistically i don't see those who work in a busy manual handling warehouse that is probably built in green belt miles from town being in a rush to hop on a bicycle to work at 4am...

Its a hard sell.

 

[qigong chimp]

I've just been invited to complete a survey about cycling and walking by my local authority employer. The fourth or fifth timewasting stall I can remember.
Had I driven to County Hall during the years I've been working for them I would by now have hoovered up free parking worth (costing the LA to provide, that is), steering by 2008 DfT figures, circa £8K. Single occupancy among those driving to CH runs in excess of 98%. The 700 space car park generates around 1,400 metric tons of CO2 a year, enough to keep two passenger jets perpetually aloft above the battlements, never landing. My LA employer has declared a Climate Emergency!
I don't work at CH. Were I driving to work and parking in town I'd be hoovering up circa £650 per year in 'free' parking. When parking charges were scrapped years back the cost/loss to public coffers was put at £714K per annum, and there were then around 1100 spaces, so...
I don't do either of those things, and have enjoyed not a penny's worth of provision to support my cycling to work.
To rent a parking space sized area of engineered hard standing for a purpose other than storing heavy machinery - a market stall, say - would cost around £6K - 7K a year.
The scale of embedded motoring subsidy, when you start looking for it, is breathtaking. As are the exported costs.
Every weekday over one bridge into town (pop 16K) churn 21K vehicles moving back and forth circa 60K empty seats.
I could go on. There are >1000 school and college students journeying every day in town to their seats of learning, and only 54 members of the Chamber of Trade in whose interests the street scene is aggressively defended and maintained as a car trashed clusterf*ck by a bought Town Council.
When I'm all lost in the supermarket, part of my grocery bill goes to meet the cost to Morrisbury's of providing acres of parking free to their car-borne customers.

 

[qigong chimp]

Which one of the 1000's of mobile phone sites should I choose to live by then?

The one in Hobart.

 

[Beebo]

My concern is that the government will be pressured to reduce fuel duty.
And it has been frozen for at least the last 10 years, when it was supposed to rise above inflation every year.