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| My preferred mode of transport. |
All the walking everywhere makes me so conscious on the impact of cars. For starters, they are so very loud. Walking next to a road with cars stopping and starting and zipping along, the noise of cars is so intrusive and unpleasant. But such a 'normal' background noise to our modern life. Can you imagine a world without cars? It would be quiet and the air would be cleaner.
Then there is the busyness aspect. It seems as if everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere. Taking off fast, driving fast along house-lined streets, barely slowing down for corners, tailgating if someone in front is driving to slow. Rush rush rush, hurry hurry hurry. And the cars and semi-trailers on the bigger [and not so much bigger] roads. Scary fast. Couldn't-stop-if-they-had-to fast.
I know a lot of people don't have a car for whatever reason. Of course it can be done. If we were to go car-free, it would mean big lifestyle changes for us. We wouldn't be visiting people out of town much. We would need to rely on public transport for trips to bigger towns or to the city [actually a good option anyway]. We would buy things we could carry. We would think more about what we buy.
One day we hope to buy some land out of town, which would really necessitate having a car. But at this point in time, we could realistically [or not] get away with not having a car. I don't know that we'll actually do it, maybe we will or maybe we won't. But the simple fact of pondering the question has me thinking about every car trip we take, and every walk we go on.
If we didn't have a car, would I be doing this?
If it was raining, would we still go on this walk?
If we didn't have a car, would I buy that heavy watermelon [and then carry it home]?
If we didn't have a car, how would we get bales of bedding straw for the chooks, or pea straw for the garden? How would we even get to the nursery?
So many questions. But worth pondering.
Do you have a car, or live car-free? How do you go with it?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a car, but
- If you want to get a better job, you need to have a car (we need a better job that buy a house)
- Sometimes it is inconvenient to have to buy something heavy (well, that I have a sister with a car)
Besides, we are already living without a car for 5 years and can be
We love bicycles
Wow 5 years without a car, I think that would be wonderful. And difficult at times!
DeleteI need to get a baby seat for my bike now ;-)
definitely. You have such beautiful weather now.
DeleteI do have a car (together we have 2!) and use it almost daily. It would be really nice if I didn't have to rely on it so much though. Maybe you could keep your car, but just take it off of your insurance and tuck it away for a while and not use it, so you'd still have one when you need it down the road...
ReplyDeleteYeah we've thought about that... but car registration is about $600 a year here so it seems a pricey option! At the moment we've got two cars (one for sale) that have both been getting flat batteries from not being driven enough. Seems like it's regular driving or not at all!
DeleteI live in the city and am car free... The things that you're mentioning here are definitely things I consider in my daily life. I buy less because I don't want to carry it. If I make a big purchase, it's planned more because of the effort to get it back home. If it's raining and there are things to be done, I pull out my umbrella and do them anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah I guess it's not the end of the world to get a bit of rain water on you if it's wet. We get wet going to and from the car anyway. I really like hearing your perspective.
DeleteI totally agree with everything you said about cars Jacqui. The only thing that would concern me if you did decide to go car-free could you get William to the doctor or the hospital quickly if you needed to.
ReplyDeleteIn this location we're at now, I would say we're close enough to the hospital (put it this way, if I needed to get there in a hurry, I don't know if it would be quicker to go directly on foot or to stuff around with putting us into the car, but fingers crossed I don't have to find out). But I absolutely share this concern, it was one of the reasons we had to keep two cars at our old location, as I refused to be so far away from a hospital without a car during the days when my husband was at work.
DeleteI've often pondered whether we could go car free. We have one car and hope to go smaller some time. I don't drive, and we are within walking distance of most things. I would miss not being able to go to Farmer's markets, my Chiropractor across town, and all the small seaside towns around here. We did have a couple of trips to A&E with Liv a little while ago when she had persistent gastro, which would have been tricky without a car. In some ways it's easier when the kids are little, as you can put them in a pram to get them around. My girls are used to walking long distances though, and they generally don't whinge too much about it. I don't like the car culture that has evolved, it's not natural, and people have become reliant on them. They are smelly and dangerous, and isolating. Imagine the sense of community if we saw more people walking and riding bikes than in cars. I get annoyed when I see so many cars zooming along with one person in them, and hardly anyone on the footpath. I think car sharing will become more common in the future, especially as oil prices keep going up.
ReplyDeleteI find the pram so handy for walking with, I can stash groceries underneath it very easily. I guess it will become more difficult when the little one is too big for the pram. But yes, the car culture is pretty awful. I have become less and less reliant on my car, and when I do drive, I'm usually the person driving too slow. And annoying other people because of it (not on purpose).
DeleteI take the school bus everywhere. Even though my partner has a car for work, we don't use it to drive anywhere as a family. We car pool with friends a lot too.
ReplyDeleteCar pooling is a good idea. I've noticed a bus going past our place regularly, which I'll look into as an option for us. I think it will be good for my little one to get used to using public transport rather than always relying on a car.
DeleteI am so dependent on my car that I cannot imagine a day day without the car. I really have no idea how the people in such places manage to travel on such roads especially without cars.
ReplyDelete