Car Ownership -Good Or Bad?

[Xenophon PCDGS]

That's where we need a National railcard, available to anyone for a fee. It could encourage people to give up motor transport altogether whilst incentivising those with cars to get the train where appropriate.

(Yes, I know I go on about this).

What is the use of such a railcard, when there is no railway station in the vicinity of people who live in areas such as what once was the lines of the Mid-Wales Railway or the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth Line, just to cite two areas in Wales, or the now-closed stations between Preston and Lancaster that were closed in order to improve the timings of services on the WCML and even the area of closed stations on the Garstang and Knott-End Railway and the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway.

It then follows on from that, in areas where a railway station is present on accessing it, when some rural areas have no bus services, does one have to use a taxi as a mode of connection?

To be really up to date, you could have the misfortune to live in an area of many stations, such as the GTR franchise, on RMT strike days,,,

 

[D365]

It wouldn't be realistic to expect everyone to give up their cars, but it can at least be argued that reducing the general need for private vehicles is a realistic target, is it not?

 

[miami]

It wouldn't be realistic to expect everyone to give up their cars, but it can at least be argued that reducing the general need for private vehicles is a realistic target, is it not?

Lets assume something like a mid-range family car, that you buy new and keep. The ownership of such a car tends to cost in the £400 a month for the car, insurance, tax, servicing, consumables (tyres etc) (personal leasing over 3 years without final payment). If you don't outsource the parking to the council you are spending some of your land parking the car too. You can buy second hand, but that leads to more unknown costs.

If you get 45mpg, that costs about 12p a mile in petrol.

If you drive 1000 miles a year you end up spending £4800 + £120 = £4920 = £5 per mile.
If you drive 10000 miles a year you end up spending £4800 + £1200 = £6000 = 60p per mile.
If you drive 30000 miles a year you end up spending £4800 + £3600 = £8400 = 20p per mile.

So the marginal cost of a journey is about 12p a mile, it makes sense to use the car.

If you could instead rent a car from your own driveway, based on the above prices, but with the total cost spread over 30,000 miles, you'd pay 20p a mile. Add in extra wear+tear, cleaning, profit, etc and call it 40p a mile.

Drive 1000 miles, you spend £400
Drive 10000 miles, you spend £4000
Drive 30000 miles, you spend £12000 per year

It would only make sense to own a car if you drive a lot. If you only do 10,000 miles a year it's cheaper to rent.

Once you have that decided, each trip becomes 40p/mile.

Want to go to a nearby city about 50 miles away, the train might cost 30p a mile - £30 return. Currently if you have a car it will cost £12, plus say £5 parking is £17. If there's two of you then it's £60 return on the train, and £17 on the car.

If you instead pay 40p a mile and avoid parking (point-to-point rental), it comes out to be £40 return. The train is now cheaper than the car (£30 vs £40), and you're still paying less than you would before, with an expensive asset rusting away in the driveway.

Even while for two the train is still more expensive, it's not 3.5 times the price as it is now, and the ease of using the train may be worthwhile (especially adding in family or two together railcards)


If the cost of using a car can be more correctly spread as a per mile cost, and no, or limited, fixed cost, I suspect the number of trips it makes sense to use the car on will fall considerably, even with no other changes.

 

[RichmondCommu]

It wouldn't be realistic to expect everyone to give up their cars, but it can at least be argued that reducing the general need for private vehicles is a realistic target, is it not?

How can it ever be a realistic target outside of zone 3 in London? I could sell the cars on our drive this weekend but then we wouldn't be able to do half the things that we like to do at weekends because public transport doesn't meet our needs. And at the same time how is public transport going to improve unless more people start using it?

 

[tony_mac]

If the cost of using a car can be more correctly spread as a per mile cost, and no, or limited, fixed cost, I suspect the number of trips it makes sense to use the car on will fall considerably, even with no other changes.

It would be feasible for some of the large 'fixed' costs, such as insurance and tax to actually be charged on a per-mile basis.
We are likely to see something like that with pay-per-use road pricing at some point anyway, but there is no reason it couldn't (or shouldn't) apply to insurance costs also (we are already seeing some steps towards that with the 'black box' insurance policies).

 

[RichmondCommu]

Lets assume something like a mid-range family car, that you buy new and keep. The ownership of such a car tends to cost in the £400 a month for the car, insurance, tax, servicing, consumables (tyres etc) (personal leasing over 3 years without final payment). If you don't outsource the parking to the council you are spending some of your land parking the car too. You can buy second hand, but that leads to more unknown costs.

If you buy a new car then quite frankly you are crackers. Every car I've bought in the last 20 years has been a year old. You save a lot of money and the car is still under warranty. I've never understood why people lease cars either; you're just throwing money away with no possible resale.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Am I alone in thinking that whereas once the bicycle was seen as a major source of transport in China, not a country that one would describe as a democracy, the private car has seemingly been approved of by the ruling party there in recent times to appear in great profusion.

If so, how strange that one culture of the type above sees no problems with private car ownership yet there are seemingly those in what is supposed to be a democracy who would wish to curtail such personal freedoms

 

[Railops]

If you buy a new car then quite frankly you are crackers. Every car I've bought in the last 20 years has been a year old. You save a lot of money and the car is still under warranty. I've never understood why people lease cars either; you're just throwing money away with no possible resale.

Unless you're mega rich brand new cars are an absolute ridiculous thing to spend money on, a few months or a year old is always the way to go.
You spend 25 grand on a new car and it's worth about 18 grand as soon as it leaves the showroom if you're lucky.

 

[telstarbox]

Am I alone in thinking that whereas once the bicycle was seen as a major source of transport in China, not a country that one would describe as a democracy, the private car has seemingly been approved of by the ruling party there in recent times to appear in great profusion.

If so, how strange that one culture of the type above sees no problems with private car ownership yet there are seemingly those in what is supposed to be a democracy who would wish to curtail such personal freedoms

Cycling still allows a great deal of personal freedom (and it's quicker than driving in many cities, hence its recent growth as a mode for "serious" trips). TfGM have set a target of 10% of journeys to be made by bike in 2025 for example. Cycling is of course less competitive against the car or train for interurban trips.

 

[meridian2]

If you buy a new car then quite frankly you are crackers. Every car I've bought in the last 20 years has been a year old. You save a lot of money and the car is still under warranty. I've never understood why people lease cars either; you're just throwing money away with no possible resale.

We recently scrapped a car after 11 years of ownership. It was three years old when we bought it, had 19k on the clock and was the proverbial one lady owner new pin. It cost the original owner £11k and us £3500. Apart from tyres, the odd disc, an exhaust and the usual bit and bobs, the only substantial outlay was a new cam chain, typically in its final year. It carried four of us on holiday for 7 of those 11 years, was a daily commuter, did runs to the tip and the kids to their sports and every conceivable thing you could ask of a family car.

I don't particularly enjoy driving, though probably would have done in 1930s-60s, and would much rather have taken the train for longer journeys. I couldn't begin to guess how much it would have cost for the same use on public transport, even where it was possible, but the overall outlay must be a factor of 5 to 10x. For an individual public transport may well add up, but for two people or more the incentives aren't there. For leisure travel a TOC would have to charge a small additional increment for each person in a group, not the modest discount they currently give, for a rail card to begin to make sense. The private motor car is undoubtedly a blight, but who is prepared to have their lives curtailed or pay through the nose to make a point?

 

[JamesRowden]

As for making any driving offence result in a ban of 3 months . Would you include in this things like minor speeding offences ? if so I dont personally see that as proportionate .

In the cases I defined the driver deliberately breaks the terms and conditions of their licence.

 

[AlterEgo]

In the cases I defined the driver deliberately breaks the terms and conditions of their licence.

What are the terms and conditions of a driver's licence? Clue: there aren't any.

 

[martin2345uk]

I'd love to not own a car. I'd like to be able to get a bus or train to work, I hate driving in traffic every day. Sadly getting a bus to work is a journey of 2 hours assuming good connections and I don't want to spend 4 hours a day on a bus!
I want to try and get a job in Manchester City centre so I can get the tram, which stops 5 mins from my house.

 

[JamesRowden]

What are the terms and conditions of a driver's licence? Clue: there aren't any.

Does one not have to agree to follow the rules of the road?

 

[AlterEgo]

Does one not have to agree to follow the rules of the road?

That's the law, not the conditions of use of a driver's licence. The law applies whether you're driving with a licence or not.

 

[JamesRowden]

That's the law, not the conditions of use of a driver's licence. The law applies whether you're driving with a licence or not.

Is there nowhere in the application process where one has to agree to follow the rules/law?

 

[najaB]

Is there nowhere in the application process where one has to agree to follow the rules/law?

Nope. Not that I remember (bearing in mind that I don't currently have a full UK licence).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

How can it ever be a realistic target outside of zone 3 in London? I could sell the cars on our drive this weekend but then we wouldn't be able to do half the things that we like to do at weekends because public transport doesn't meet our needs. And at the same time how is public transport going to improve unless more people start using it?

I think you've correctly identified the problem: People often choose to drive because public transport is inadequate, but the very fact that they drive is what then makes it difficult to provide adequate public transport. Clearly this is not a problem that can be solved overnight: Pro-car policies in the past have got us into a situation where too many people, through no fault of their own, now rely heavily on their cars, and it would not be fair to suddenly heavily penalize them for that (which I think some of the suggestions on this thread would do).

But there's clearly a need for the Government to take action to get the UK to be less car-dependent, but it has to be gradual. Paul's comment is also relevant:

If only 10% of drivers moved to public transport, the system would collapse (rail usage would double for instance), so any change in peoples habits need to be gradual.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If so, how strange that one culture of the type above sees no problems with private car ownership yet there are seemingly those in what is supposed to be a democracy who would wish to curtail such personal freedoms

Bringing democracy into this makes no sense. Democracy doesn't mean people should have unlimited freedom to do whatever they like, it means giving people a say in how they are Governed - and usually goes with a reasonable level of freedom of speech. Neither of those has anything to do with driving. In any democracy, numerous freedoms are curtailed because it's the only way society can function. So I fear you are onto a complete red herring here.

Besides, I don't think anyone here has posted to say you shouldn't be allowed to drive. What a number of people are saying is that that more measures should be taken to make it easier for people to use public transport and to discourage (or make it harder in some way) for people to drive - which is a different thing. I'm not clear why you keep raising what appears to be a straw man, by implying other people are saying something that they are not. Perhaps you could clarify?

And a final point for you to consider: You've posted a couple of times about 'personal freedom' in the context of being able to drive. But what about the freedom of people to breathe air that isn't poisonous? To go about their lives without getting caught in appalling congestion in almost any urban area? What about the freedom of people who for various reasons cannot drive to be able to get to the places they need to go to? You can't get away from the problem that your claimed freedom to drive almost inevitably destroys other people's freedom in those regards. Do you not regard those freedoms as equally important?

 

[EM2]

I've never understood why people lease cars either; you're just throwing money away with no possible resale.

Assuming you ever want to sell it.

 

[yorksrob]

What is the use of such a railcard, when there is no railway station in the vicinity of people who live in areas such as what once was the lines of the Mid-Wales Railway or the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth Line, just to cite two areas in Wales, or the now-closed stations between Preston and Lancaster that were closed in order to improve the timings of services on the WCML and even the area of closed stations on the Garstang and Knott-End Railway and the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway.

It then follows on from that, in areas where a railway station is present on accessing it, when some rural areas have no bus services, does one have to use a taxi as a mode of connection?

To be really up to date, you could have the misfortune to live in an area of many stations, such as the GTR franchise, on RMT strike days,,,

Is that not true of any attempt to make people switch to the railways ?

You can provide an incentive but ultimately it will be those people for whom rail transport is already to an extent practical, who will switch. The net impact is still less congestion on the roads, less pollution etc.

 

[radamfi]

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

shows Switzerland to have 566 cars per capita and the UK 519 (2011/2010)

A few years ago I compared Swiss and UK transport statistics for 2011 traffic

Switzerland:

train: 20 billion km
car: 90 billion km
slow modes: 7.7 billion km
street based public transport: 4.1 billion km

Transport Statistics GB 2012 (2011 traffic)

train: 50 billion km
car: 556 billion km
other private: 17 billion km
slow modes: 24 billion km
other PT inc taxi: 56 billion km

GB had about 8 times the population of Switzerland but car travel was only a bit more than 6 times as much. So despite Switzerland having the best public transport system in the world and having by far the heaviest used rail network, they own and use cars more than Britain. That doesn't help the argument for improving public transport to cut car usage, as much as I would hope it would.

 

[yorksrob]

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

shows Switzerland to have 566 cars per capita and the UK 519 (2011/2010)

A few years ago I compared Swiss and UK transport statistics for 2011 traffic

Switzerland:

train: 20 billion km
car: 90 billion km
slow modes: 7.7 billion km
street based public transport: 4.1 billion km

Transport Statistics GB 2012 (2011 traffic)

train: 50 billion km
car: 556 billion km
other private: 17 billion km
slow modes: 24 billion km
other PT inc taxi: 56 billion km

GB had about 8 times the population of Switzerland but car travel was only a bit more than 6 times as much. So despite Switzerland having the best public transport system in the world and having by far the heaviest used rail network, they own and use cars more than Britain. That doesn't help the argument for improving public transport to cut car usage, as much as I would hope it would.

What are their fares like ?

There's also a chance that the UK has a larger proportion of the population in urban areas. However good a transport system is, price and terrain will affect how practical it is to use it.

 

[radamfi]

What are their fares like ?

For foreigners, quite high, but for regular travellers earning Swiss salaries, good value. A high percentage of the population have the GA card giving unlimited travel nationwide on all modes.

 

[miami]

It would be feasible for some of the large 'fixed' costs, such as insurance and tax to actually be charged on a per-mile basis.
We are likely to see something like that with pay-per-use road pricing at some point anyway, but there is no reason it couldn't (or shouldn't) apply to insurance costs also (we are already seeing some steps towards that with the 'black box' insurance policies).

I'd be happy with road pricing if it charged per hour spent on the road. Say 10p/hour spent on the road. If you park your car on the road all the time, that would be £876 a year you'd have to spend for the privilege. That's still a bargain compared to the cost of buying a 2mx3m piece of land in most towns. Park your car on private property and the cost wouldn't apply.

Is there nowhere in the application process where one has to agree to follow the rules/law?

My nan never even passed a test, let alone agreed to anything other than "try not to hit anyone"

If you buy a new car then quite frankly you are crackers.

Presumably plenty of people do. I never have, but my old 55 reg picasso I bought last year was presumably new at some point in 2005/06.

However even if the sunk cost of buying and owning a car was only £200 a month rather than £400, the point would remain, once you make the decision to own the car - due to needing it for about 1000 miles a year of driving, it changes the finances of the next 10,000 miles.

For what it's worth, in 2016 2.7 million cars were first registered that year, that's a lot of people buying new. The RAC reported that 17% of motorists owned a car under 1 year old, and the average car age was 4.7 years. 34% of people drive under 5,000 miles a year, and the average only 9,000.

If a typical family car that's bought new costs £15k and ends up doing 100,000 miles over 11 years, that's 15p per mile just in deprecation. Wear and tear etc could well double that torwards the end of it's life (the car isn't worth £7500 when it's done 50,000 miles after 5 years). Total cost of ownership over 11 years

Upfront cost £15k
Insurance £6k
Road Tax £1.5k
MOT + Servicing £2.5k
Breakdowns, tyres, exhausts, etc: £2.5k

So that's £28k before you drive a mile. Add say 12p/mile (45mpg at current prices), over 100k miles, and that's another £12k, bringing the total to £40k for 11 years and 100k miles, or 40p/mile. Which is a little under what HMRC allow you to claim against tax.

However the marginal cost is nearer 12p. If you buy the car after 3 years, for far cheaper, you may end up paying less per mile, but only because you've been subsidised by someone else paying more per mile.

The RAC in 2012 reported the average cost to run a car as being 56p/mile. The telegraph argued this wasn't true. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring...RAC-cost-of-motoring-figures-dont-add-up.html).

They also think you can get the cost down to £1200 a year for 5000 miles a year -- or 25p a mile - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring.../How-to-run-a-car-for-100-a-month-all-in.html -- but that's really scraping the barrel, and even then the sunk cost still accounts for half the cost per mile.

 

[edwin_m]

I suggest that the car is essential for most people's lifestyles today, but rail can have quite a high share of the market for those journeys it is suited for. These are for example commuting into city centres particularly London, mid to long distance journeys with a city centre destination, and travel in general in the London area where the urban density is great enough to sustain good public transport while at the same time making it completely unrealistic for everybody to drive everywhere.

It's important to realise that the sorts of travel opportunities the car offers were never available via public transport even in the "heyday" of the rail network. Without posting the graph again, car usage accounted for a huge increase in total travel between the 1950s and the 1990s but rail travel remained broadly constant over this period, then as now dominated by travel into cities. The sort of rural branch that Beeching closed often had only a handful of trains per day, not attractive to anyone with a car on the drive that could be used any time. So I don't think we will see large numbers of people abandoning their cars to rely on public transport, unless there is some sort of major economic catastrophe.

However there is some scope at the margins to reduce car use, and I agree it is use rather than ownership that is important. Measures such as car clubs can help people in urban areas to do without a car if their need for one is occasional, and along with things like mileage-based tax and insurance help to shift costs from the fixed to the marginal. Better integration of bus and rail could help public transport to be competitive on journeys starting or ending in suburbs, where the difficulty of getting to or from the station at one or both ends will often tip people towards driving instead. It remains to be seen whether driverless cars will benefit rail by serving this sort of role instead, what they will do to bus service and ridership, and whether they will threaten rail by facilitating door-to-door journeys over longer distances without the need to waste time driving.

 

[yorksrob]

For foreigners, quite high, but for regular travellers earning Swiss salaries, good value. A high percentage of the population have the GA card giving unlimited travel nationwide on all modes.

If the salaries are quite high, perhaps people are a lot more shielded from the cost of motoring.

That GA card sounds like a brilliant idea (so it'll never happen here).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

One thing I would like to see is a sustained Government publicity campaign to change people's attitudes to driving, and to make people more aware of the harm they do to other people as soon as that ignition key is turned, so that people become more ready to think, 'Do I really need the car for this particular journey?' I'd say on railforums, many people do have that awareness, but many of the wider public don't.

Until that wider culture is changed, it will be politically very hard for any Government to do some of the things that are needed to discourage unnecessary driving. Some decades ago, the Government did successfully campaign to change public attitudes to both drink-driving and driving without seatbelts. It's time for more political will to address the same issue of culture/public attitudes about driving in general for journeys where there are reasonable alternatives.

 

[radamfi]

If the salaries are quite high, perhaps people are a lot more shielded from the cost of motoring.

That GA card sounds like a brilliant idea (so it'll never happen here).

Cost isn't that much of an issue for the Swiss. Unless you are going to somewhere like Zurich where driving is difficult, it is basically about which mode is quickest.

The Netherlands has a similar OV-Jaarkaart for unlimited train, bus, tram and metro travel nationwide.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Does anyone think that certain current rail disruption matters not really help members of the public who drive to consider making the change to rail?

The matter of the car leaving from your home residence, even to a park and ride facility, is still one very much in the mind of the car driving population.

I note vehicle emissions are often cited but surely in the 21st century, is not human knowledge there to research and develop vehicles which will greatly reduce such levels. I am old enough to remember the smogs that affected cities in the 1950s and of the subsequent gradual move away from coal as a fuel in both home and industry.