350htrr

Ops wanted to make an actual poll for voting... Try again...


EDIT: Well it seems I left out a viable choice, "Don't care what anybody thinks, I have my own definition" Pick # 10 even if the mods don't change it to that... Sorry, not used to making polls.

Roody

I could go along with 1 or 3. I could live with a simler

5 I don't own a car.

Or something vague and non-arbitrary, like

6 I don't own a car and I rarely use one.

Personally, I don't see the sense of owning a car and calling yourself carfree. That's just too loosy-goosy for me.

But if 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 become the definition that's accepted by most people, I will happily adapt to it, use it, and move along to another topic. As others have mentioned, we will never have a "perfect" definition, so the goal should be to find one that most people can live with.

Walter S

None of the above. It's a personal decision and need not involve BF. If you feel carfree then be carfree. If you feel carlite then be carlite.

350htrr

None of the above should have been #10 I guess... Well I cant seem to get back in there to change it so if a Mod wants to, that would be OK with me...

Mobile 155

Not owning and not using a car at all would have been my choice. But that wasn't a choice so number 1. Is as close as it gets.

350htrr

Yea, I thought about that as the first choice, but stuff happens, and a few rides in a car doesn't really make you non-carfree in practice, just in theory....

Mobile 155

Well 1 is a compromise I guess. At least as I see it. But I have been accused of being OCD. LOL

Walter S

For your entire life?

Dahon.Steve

I believe Carfree simply means not owning a car. Period. If you use someone else's car or rent one every now and then, that's fine since we all can't be perfect. However, not owing a car doesn't mean you have to be bicycle, bus or rail dependent.

There was a documentary I posted awhile back about a Canadian who made it look impossible to be carfree by being transit dependent. He removed carsharing, bicycles and cabs from his options and made life miserable. The beauty of being carfree is that one does not have to be dependent on ANY form of locomotion. You are free to use RollerBlades, kick scooters, friends vehicle or any form of motorized transport including a car. However, you cannot own the vehicle.

350htrr

Lets just go for 1 year of ones life, how's that...

Oh, And # 10 should read "I don't care what anybody thinks, I have my own definition"...

Machka 

"Don't care what anybody thinks, I have my own definition"

Also, you should have made it multiple choice, so that we could select several things.

Machka 

We're not actually here to decide on a definition, you realise ... we're just having some fun now.

Machka 

+1

350htrr

Man oh man, I'm totally incompetent... No wonder I don't actually believe in statistics... and I don't think I actually have a dog in this fight...

Machka 

I work in statistics ... statistics are amazing things.


Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, the poll feature here is just a bit awkward to use.

350htrr

Statistics can be useful, I guess, if one asks the right questions. Unfortunately it's harder than I thought to ask the right questions and remain neutral...

I really wish the Mods would change the #10 to "I don't care what anybody thinks I have my own definition"

Mobile 155

Once you get to the point where you declare yourself "Car Free" or being free from using cars sure I could see not using one for your whole life. But that wasn't one of the choices. But then I have been around kids that can't eat shellfish for their entire life so they are shellfish free.
Now had I been asked about being almost car free I might have picked any of the other answers. They all seem to work for some.

Machka 

I called myself car free for about 6 years. Then things changed ... and suddenly I was driving about 1000 km/week. Life happens. Sometimes you can live without a car, sometimes you need one.

For me, being car free or car light is not a life goal ... if I can be car free or car light while attaining/living my other goals, great. If not, oh well ... a car is just a tool to help me attain/live my goals at the time.

Machka 

As I've said before ...

350htrr

There doesn't need to be an agreement, I'm just curious as to what people think how much car use is allowed and still be considered Carfree in N America, or where cars dominate...

Walter S

Well, I don't have a car and yet I occasionally ride in one. Also every year or so I'll take a business trip and rent a car. I choose to call that car-free. Not because it's a real specific amount of car use, just because that's how it feels to me. If the number of business trips increased a lot I'd probably still consider myself carfree because that's a matter of business instead of "living".

If my sister needed help getting her car from the shop and asked me to drive it home for her, I would still call myself car free. I don't have a real specific number of car rides that "qualify" me to have this "status" and don't care that much whether I conform to arbitrary definitions of carfree.

If you feel that your everyday life is free of cars then call that carfree. If you don't then don't. Why do you need BF to tell you what being free of cars means? I don't think that's measured by the exact number of car "uses" in your life. Not every "use/ride" is the same. If you accept a car ride because you're with other people that drive and don't want to alienate people for a silly reason like not having anything to do with those God awful cars, then have you "used" a car and must now be relegated to car-lite? OTOH if you ride in a car to make a monthly trip to Costco then perhaps now you're "using" a car and calling that carfree might be a stretch.

The ways that cars might impact your life are too varied and complex to wrap up into a concise definition. And what's the point? This sub forum can still be about living a life free of cars without trying to nail down when you do or do not achieve such a condition in your life and how long you must maintain that in order to proudly declare yourself "carfree".

Machka 

I think ... it depends.

Smallwheels

My answer is, someone who doesn't own or lease a car. Unless you grow your own food and manufacture everything in your life there were motor vehicles involved in getting things to you or the store where you buy things.

350htrr

Yes, That's a given, I am curious how wide the spread ends up being from 0 use of a private vehicle to...

B. Carfree

Then I'm not carfree in your book. I own a car. As far as I know, it doesn't run any more. (I suppose I could invest an afternoon sorting out its issues, but I won't.) I don't register it since it is not on public property. I keep it because a $15 insurance policy on it gives me a $70 or so discount on my homeowners' insurance. It also allows me to have a full-coverage policy for $1.50/day on those rare occasions when I do get behind the wheel.

I do drive on occasion. Once in a while I'll take a commercial trucking gig. Every so often my neighbor needs someone to help him retrieve his stewardess wife's car from the airport and his assistant isn't available, so I go with him and drive the thing to his home. Once a year or so I rent a car to visit my mother and sister because the ride between Eugene and Medford in Oregon is beyond my wife's comfort zone for danger, there's no train service and the buses are, well horrifically, excitingly, dangerous.



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