jayhuse

Ok, i am new to biking. I want to reduce my car mileage an expenses. My end goal is to eventually be car light. Meaning we just have 1 car to use. 2 Adults that work far apart with no kids.

So here are some of the problems.

1. I am afraid if my wife takes the car an there is a problem with the car that I will not be able to pick her up or go get her ?? Should I have her get a cell phone and tripple AAA ? Any other options ?

2. We sometimes do things differently or seperate on saturdays or sundays. I do not want to put any additionaly stress on my wife, if I decide to get rid of my car. I am going to try over the next few weeks to use just 1 car but there are sometimes when I feel you might need 2 cars ?? Just curious how some of this is worked out.

3. Are there any other things that folks do here to help reduce the stress on the family with 1 car.

Thanks,

Jay

chephy

I won't be too concerned about the car's breaking down. It happens so rarely (unless your car is a POS) that you can count on taking a taxi and having the car towed, and not worry too much about the expense. Then there is AAA, as you mentioned. It's certainly less expensive than having another car just for the purpose of rescuing the first car.

As for the second question... your main problem might be that you live in the 'burbs (you do, right? ). It's more difficult to manage there without a car (though still possible; there are people on this very forum who do it). Anyway, don't forget that you can always rent a car, take a taxi or get rides from friends. If you don't need a car all that often, this will most likely be cheaper than having a second car and paying for the car, insurance, maintenance etc. And of course you can always ride your bike places (or just ride your bike for fun instead of going those places ).

I also don't see why you can't ask your wife to help you out with her car occasionally. After all you're saving both of you a heck of a lot of money by not having a car, so she should like that, no?

I really never have this problem because I live right in Toronto, almost downtown, with a subway 3 minutes away by foot.

Ellie

I wouldn't be without my AA (AAA in the US) membership. My car is not a POS, but the other weekend I was using it to reach a cricket match 150 miles from home, and the fuel pump packed up. The AA came, got us out of the road, took my girlfriend to a station so she could get home, then towed me the 150 miles home. Even with a second car, how are you going to do that? In the UK they give priority to women alone, or (as was the case) where you haven't managed to get off the road.

Bike_UK

1. Whilst your concern for your wife is understandable, i think your logic is somewhat flawed. How far are you going to take that line of thinking? Do you have someone who can come at get you if you breakdown on the way to 'rescue' your wife? Do they have a backup? etc
I think a cell-phone and AAA membership is sufficient.
2. You work it out simply BECAUSE 2 cars aren't available. You do different things, but they could be nearby so one drops the other off. Or drops them at a convenient train station. Could one of you cycle to your destination? There are indeed times when you might need two cars but IME these are very rare. In the last 18 months, my wife and i have never needed the second vehicle and indeed it's now been sold.
3. Planning is the main thing. For example, now you could get the groceries on the way home from work instead of jumping in your own car at the weekend to do it when your wife was out in hers.

One of my excuses for keeping my motorbike for so long was "in case we needed two vehicles". But then it broke down and i couldn't afford to fix it. Seven months later when i could afford to, i realised that in all that time over the winter we had never needed it. So it was repaired and sold.

BenyBen

1- AAA and a cell phone. Breakdowns aren't that common.

2- Plan ahead, and work it out together. One of you "takes" the saturday, the other, the sunday. Or you can both get usage of the car on saturday if your events are at different times. If it's at the same time and you both gotta go, try carpooling, and getting picked up on the way back. You could even try to look at getting dropped off at some train station (if available).

3- As I said: Plan ahead. Also, if you want to ease the transition, sit down with your wife, and break down the numbers on how much that second car is costing you. Then commit to putting down a certain % of that $$$ into some kind of investment. That ought to show your wife the value of dropping your second car and make her more willing to live with the adjustments that will be necessary.

Of course, as you get around biking, you might find that you can do more with it than you thought you could, and you may just be able to shift a lot of the car usage towards the bike. This all depends on where you live of course.

LandLuger

Yep, just takes a little planning. For example, when my wife's suzuki (I have a family of five) needed to go into the shop for warranty work last week, I just threw my 'bent up on the roof and headed the forty miles to the dealership. I left the car to be worked on the following day and flew home on the bike. By doing so I incorporated a weekly training ride into a gas saving trip.

DataJunkie

I have a family of 3. 2 adults and one toddler. My wife works quite a distance away from where I do.
Going car lite was not that bad for us. The added expense of the second car was far worse to our well being.

We learned to combine trips and arrange the use of the car with each other.
However, now I prefer to bike everywhere and my wife has the car almost everyday. Thus, arranging the use of the car is not an issue for me.
1) What everyone else said. We also have family that can help when needed. Both my wife and I find them intolerable and try our best to avoid this option.
2) This would tie into arranging the use of the car with your spouse. However, my recreation involves my bike. Plus, I have use of a decent mass transit system.
3) Make sure your wife agrees with the change. Nothing worse than a spouse that won't cooperate. She needs to be in on the change since it impacts her life as well. If you could get her on a bike, it would help even more.

Roody

Is this thread for British and Canadians only?

DataJunkie

What am I, chopped liver?

Artkansas 

What stress? My wife and I were one car for many years. If you are really worried, get a tandem bike, and that way If she gets stuck you can pedal to where she is and pick her up. Or don't bother, just make sure that she can pedal your bike home while you attempt to get the car running again. (At least my wife always assumed that if her car was broken, it was my job to fix it.) There is nothing that a tow truck liberally applied can't cure though. Triple-A membership is about the same cost as a tow, so plan on getting two tows at least each year, or a lot of maps to make sure you get your money's worth.

What you might do is make sure the car has an attachable bike rack. That adds a lot of flexibility

There were some times, say when I had a job interview, that my wife would drive to work, I would later pedal to her work and pick up the car, drive to the interview and back and drop off the car and pedal home. Be creative.

If you have separate things to do, well, that's what a bike is for. Get pedaling. If you are in shape, a 20 mile pedal is not tiring. Often you can just swap out the car, do one person's activities, come home and do the other persons.

I can't remember times when I felt we needed more cars, but I sometimes wished that we had a station wagon instead of a sedan.

Platy

Breakdowns are uncommon but eventually they do happen.

It would be good to plan ahead for situations where a family member is stranded with an inoperable car. Here are some ideas based on my own experiences.

(1) Cell phone and AAA is a good idea, but have a backup strategy. Three times in 30 years I've had AAA fail to arrive after being called. All AAA does is to call in the referral to local towing services, anyway.

(2) Make a list of towing, taxi, and rental car services for family members to keep in their wallet. Find out whether there is a statewide motorist assistance number to call.

(3) If the situation seems dangerous, call the police and ask them to check on the person's welfare. They won't provide taxi service but they may call a towing service or take the person to a safe place. One problem I've encountered is that if the family member isn't sure where he or she is, it's hard to know which local emergency service to call. ("Dad, I'm somewhere in Louisiana! The car stopped running! It's dark and I'm afraid! What do I do now?")

(4) Ideally every family member should carry money for emergency situations. Of course for some people this would not work because they will spend the so-called emergency money and not have it when they need it. An alternative I've used in the past for stranded family members is https://www.westernunion.com , which can be used to wire cash to many accessible locations. Lots of towing services don't take checks or credit cards.

(5) Every family member should know how to change a tire, I think.

(6) If I ever get a car again, I'm going to keep a folding bike in the trunk.

You can't anticipate every possible problem, but thinking ahead helps.

rec-cyclist

jayhuse to see if being a one car family is for you park one of the cars for a couple weeks. Or if you need to get rid of a car sooner, take the plunge and sell the other car. Life doesn't stop if you have "only" one car.

brianp

I've been on car-lite for a few weeks. My main issues have been 1) coordinate trips so you have all your 'have to' drives done together. My wife actually has been getting into helping me plan so she worries less about me on the road with a ton of stuff. 2) for safety/other stuff, AAA and rental cars should get you everywhere else. Rentals are actually quite cheap, I figure it would be less than what our second car payment was before we paid it off ( WAY less satisfaction on biking everywhere when the car is paid off. oh well ). Plus the insurance, maintenance, etc.

Also, I second what Artkansas said about being in shape. At first coming home from the grocery store with the trailer full seemed hard. Now I can do a Costco trip, 7 miles away no problem. In a higher gear even. With good bags / trailers and a little training, you'd be surprised at how much you can do on your bike. Pulling kids is a good weight-training exercise.

CommuterRun

We're car-light. The wife gets it to take care of the kids, grocery shopping, etc. I use it for carrying large or a heavy load of tools to a worksite. The tools, normally, get left on site and I use a bike to commute.

AAA is good.

Sometimes there will be conflicts as to who needs the car and when. At these times, it's just a matter of compromising and planning. One of the ways to plan is to consolidate trips. For example: Say I need to go to the hardware store and she needs to go to the grocery store. We can do both in one trip, it's just a matter of each giving a little time while the other takes care of whatever it is they need to do.

This saves a great deal of money on the expenses of a second car.

nedgoudy

I have AAA too, but what pisses me
off about them is that they won't
respond to my call for help if I am
on a bicycle! Hey, why not? I am
insured for both Home and Car and
I pay em $45 a year for the
little card, THEY OWE ME! :O)

Roody

Having "only" one car is still having one more than what the vast majority of people in the world have.
You can do it. I hope soon you will be thinking about ways to cut own to zero cars!

PurpleK

What you are experiencing are the same doubts and insecurities that virtually everyone has when first considering becoming less auto dependent. But just like everything else, you make the adjustment over time until it becomes routine.
I've seen a lot of good advice here.
I also recommend the AAA option. If nothing else, it helps save on the price of many hotel rooms when you travel whether you drive, fly or bike. As for roadside assistance, I've found we rarely use that....I think once in the past 10 years and that was due to something stupid on my part. (Way too embarrassing and I'm not even going to go there.) Certainly not worth the expense of a second "just in case" car. The chief benefit of AAA is knowing it's there if I need it but hope I never need it....sort of like the local Fire Department. If you want the security of a second motor vehicle, consider something besides an automobile. My wife and I have a little Italian Vespa scooter which could serve in a crunch. But at only 400 miles in the past two years, it's more a fun way to spend an evening out together than anything else.
Remember, car free or car light is making the adjustments necessary to make it possible. It would be difficult if not impossible to become carfree yet continue to live a car dependent lifestyle. Sometimes it requires thinking outside the box. It never ceases to amaze me how many cyclists we have in my area that routinely ride 50+ miles on any given day, go home, shower and then drive six blocks to grab a sandwich. It never even occurs to them that the bike can be used for something besides a recreational ride.
My wife and I have found having one car - really only for her as I very seldom use it - is plenty sufficient for our needs. We dropped from three cars to only one about six years ago and I can probably count on one hand the number of times we had conflicts for needing the car...and even then it was more a convenience issue than a true need. (FWIW, my office is 25 miles from my house so its not like I can simply choose to walk to work. Luckily, I have good transit service which makes my commute simple.)
If you really want to go car light, then give it a genuine try. Just remember the first few months will be the toughest until you figure out the routines, etc that make it work. I for one have been very happy with the change ever since my wife and I did it and can't imagine ever going back to having two cars. Heck, I'm leaving for ten days in Romania next week just on the money saved so far this near by not having a second car.

staple

An alternative to AAA that is worth considering is the Better World Club. Unlike AAA, they are not anti-environment. They even offer bicycle roadside assistance. We are not members, but some friends of ours are, and they are very satisfied.

justlurking

Thank you for the link, worth looking into

AverageCommuter

Yes, thank you very much, staple.