Dahon.Steve

You do lose some freedom when not owning a car.

You lose the ability of hyper mobility to cities or towns that are enclosed in highways. I can still get to these locations but it would take time and maybe money. But then I'd have to question, why would I want to go there in the first place? If it's not for employment, then I'm just wasting money. Visiting friends or family are not frequent and can be done with the assistance of a taxi if I want hyper mobility.

It's like what happened to me when they closed off a bridge to pedestrian traffic while in repairs. I can no longer visit that city without a $50.00 cab ride or spending 2 hours on public transit. However, the shopping and activities I used to do there are now done elsewhere. I don't miss it at all and that's what the motorist does not understand.

Ekdog

Drunkards and freeloaders... My-my! It sounds like you associate with a rather unsavory crowd of characters. Most of my friends are car-free and nary a one fits into either of those categories.

shipwreck

Hate getting sucked in, but to be fair I started it. I am sure that all of your friends do not live fifteen miles from a grocery store. You live in the fourth largest city in Spain. I am sure that there is some form of transit there.

I have worked with recovering alcoholics. Therefore I know them. There is a difference between knowing and being friends. To be fair, many of these people have incomes that make mine look like loose change, but you do not look at socio economic status when reaching out to someone.

You are one of the rosy cars are evil life is better without them posters I realize, and as someone who really dislikes driving I partly agree with that. So I apologize for contributing a viewpoint on your car free feel good thread.

contango 

Except the "economic shackles" of owning an older car are hardly draining.

Every year I consider whether it's worth keeping our car going based on how little we use it, and every year I conclude that even the two short trips we use it for every week are enough to warrant keeping it. As soon as we make a single trip out of town the balance tips decisively in favour of keeping it.

Ekdog

Okay, can we move away from the put-downs and the one-upmanship now and move back to the original topic?

surreal

+1. Relatively speaking, bikes are cheap. Even if a thief makes off with the entire bike, I can generally replace it for far less than I cold my truck. Many bikes can be bought, new, for less than the typical insurance deductible. If a saddle or wheelset gets pinched, it's super annoying, but even cheaper. The bikes with sentimental value are the bikes I tend not to leave locked up for extended periods, but one can build an awesome commuter bike out of an older mtb for a few hundred bucks. Not throwaway money, but less stressful than multi-thousand dollar autos or the vicious world of auto insurance...

As for repairs, bikes are again cheaper to repair, and far easier for me to repair myself versus auto repair.

Zedoo

Car ownership is an illusion of freedom that is starting to break. Car owners are dependent on massive systems of infrastructure and the geopolitics of oil and manufacturing. People who ride, walk, and wait for buses are generally more aware of the limits of their freedom.

Ekdog

I take my folder inside with me wherever I go, even into the supermarket, so there's very little stress involved.

shipwreck

I would love to chuck my vehicle. I have thought about it and here is what it would take.
Convince my family that the area they have lived in for years is not where they want to live.
Move to an urban area where I could take the bus or rail or ride to whatever job I could find, because I could not operate my current business in an urban environment, unless I had a truck to transport me to a rural area where I could operate my large salt kilns. But that's out, as the cost of living in an urban environment would be prohibitive itself, much less with the added expense of keeping a separate studio, that being without a vehicle would not work anyway.
Having the job I would need would lead to having to pay for care of my elderly family that would have been convinced to move, because I would not be there for them all day. More expense, and not as pleasant for them or me.

This is not snark thought up at a moments notice. I have looked into what it would take, and have come to the conclusion that in many ways, having a car allows me to be freer than the life style change it would take to not have one. I try to use my vehicle responsibly, as a tool not as a convenience.

tjroc

For me, going car light is giving me the freedom to send my daughter to college. I'm only about a month into it, but the $7k+ I save each year by dropping down to a single family car has made the difference between "How am I going to pay for 4 years of this?" to "Okay, it might actually be doable." Some extended family members think I'm a little nuts, but so far, using my bike as my primary vehicle (my wife and daughter use the car) is turning out to be pretty doable, too.

Ekdog

Welcome to the forum!

Getting rid of a car can really save you a lot of money. How inspiring to learn that you're putting it toward such a good cause! I wish you and your family the best of luck.

Roody

I think the case is that most of us don't have acquaintances quite like the ones you describe. So yes, maybe hanging with such people does give you a less rosy view of life. I work with mentally ill people, most of whom also have substance use issues, and I'm sure this gives me a less rosy outlook than some people have.

Recently, we had a crack addicted in-law staying in our house for a few weeks while he started recovery. He ended up stealing a few minor items--but he never asked us for a ride anywhere.

I don't consider myself to be a hippy-dippy, and I don't mooch rides. You might think I'm a hippy-dippy. That doesn't bother me because a stranger's opinion of me has no validity. I learned long ago not to let another person's stereotyped opinions of me ruin my day.

I understand that you have known a few people--even as many as 25 people--who are carfree people who ask for rides But obviously this doesn't indicate that most carfree people are this type (stereotype) of person. The behavior of mooching probably relates more to their addiction than to their not having cars.

Like most of us on this forum, I am voluntarily carfree. If I wanted to ride around in cars, I would buy a car. I wouldn't constantly bum rides.

Roody

What will you do when that inexpensive old car finally gives up the ghost? If repairs have not yet cost you a lot of money, they someday will. That's just a fact of life--any machine will eventually break down. I have owned beater cars also, but it gets to the point when you would not want to trust them on an out of town trip.

Roody

Well, I certainly would not advise or encourage you (or anybody) to give up your vehicle. Has anybody on this forum ever tried to pressure you into it? I only ask because your post seems a tad defensive. My hippy-dippy philosophy is to live and let live. If you're on a path to freedom and self-responsibility, I congratulate you and I don't care what vehicle you use to get there.

contango 

True, and a bike is infinitely easier to steal as well. You don't get many cars stolen by being chucked in the back of a pickup and driven off.

contango 

I suppose the obvious solution would be to consider the cost and benefits of replacing it. Assuming I replace it (which I probably would) I'd look to get something that had already suffered a good chunk of the depreciation and then run it for long enough that the depreciation wasn't an issue overall.

The car I have now cost me a little over £5000 (about $8000) and I've had it for 14 years. So depreciation isn't a big concern - it's not like I'm buying a $30,000 car and watching it drop to $15,000 within 18 months.

Roody

That's still almost $50 a month in "depreciation" to date, plus all the other expenses. Not a lot of money, but not chump change either. But obviously well worth it to you in your present circumstances.

(Depreciation isn't really the proper term, but it's what everybody uses.)

wipekitty

This is exactly why I no longer own a car. My car was a '95 with only 100K miles, and was pretty cheap to insure, license, and fuel. It was used last summer for a 1200 mile move, a 1000 mile road trip, a 300 mile round trip to the Cities, and a 300 mile round trip to Madison.

We nearly lost the car in Madison, and I decided that the car was no longer good for road trips. My household's in-town driving was incredibly minimal, and since we no longer had the freedom to jump in the car and drive somewhere cool, the car simply became obsolete. Since we don't depend on a car for work, errands, etc., it doesn't make sense to go buy another.

contango 

$50/month is a pretty small price to pay compared to what other modes of transport would cost, in terms of both time and money. Our weekly trips out to see friends would rack up the best part of $40/month in bus fares alone, not to mention that even without the time taken waiting for the bus and riding the bus we'd be looking at 20-25 minutes of walking each way, compared to more like 5-10 minutes in the car. When we meet at friends slightly further out we'd need to take the train and instead of paying $8-10 for the two of us we'd be looking at more like $15, plus a longer travel time, plus waiting for trains that run every 30 minutes (and I think they drop to every 60 minutes in the late evenings).

Based on visiting friends once a week we'd be dropping most of that $50/month in fares with a whole lot less convenience. If I didn't have to consider my wife I'd just take the bike but sometimes life isn't that simple.

Taking a taxi when we want to haul something specific, hiring a car for the times we go out of town and tolerating public transport more might save a little bit of money but frankly the savings would be small and not worth the loss of convenience.

contango 

I wouldn't have a problem accepting rides but I'd expect to pay for them in some way.

One year my car needed some work done so was off the road when I wanted it for our weekly trip to visit friends. Another friend detoured to give us a lift. We returned the favour when our car was back on the road and gave them a lift. It's handy when you get door-to-door transport and don't have to drive yourself, and as it turned out we lift-share more often these days.

Machka 

+1 ... again

$50/month is not much at all.

Rowan

That equates to $1.65 a day. I'd call that chump change.

lakhotason

I cannot see whether one owns a car or not is a measure of freedom.

surreal

True. Of course, I haven't had a bike stolen in well over ten years, so we're comparing an infrequent occurrence with an even less frequent occurrence. Car and bike theft happens all the time, but I suspect thieves tend to pick the easy targets.

OTOH, I know many ppl who have had their cars vandalized; this has yet to happen to my bikes. I suppose it could, but again, cheaper and easier to fix.....

Roody

I have had both bikes and cars vandalized. A $30 tire and tube on the bike and a $120 tire on the car. I had a bike stolen and the stupid thief left another bike in its place that was worth twice as much as the bike he stole. I don't know where to put that on the win-loss record. Any property you have is vulnerable to theft and damage.

I can't remember what this has to so with feelings of freedom, however. One time I felt relieved when my P.O.S. car was stolen. I guess that was a feeling of freedom. Then the cops found it and I had to spend more than $500 to get it towed from the impound lot to the salvage yard. I guess that's what they mean when they say freedom isn't cheap.