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I was desperately nervous
about becoming car-free. But eight months ago our car was hit by a passing vehicle
and it was destroyed. No problem, I thought: we'll buy another. But the insurance
payout didn't even begin to cover the costs of buying a new car—I worked out that,
with the loan(贷款)
we'd need plus petrol, insurance, parking permits and tax, we would make a payment
as much as ￡600 a month.
And
that's when I had my fancy idea. Why not just give up having a car at all? I live
in London. We have a railway station behind our house, a tube station 10 minutes'
walk away, and a bus stop at the end of the street. A new car club had just opened
in our area, and one of its shiny little red Peugeots was parked nearby. If any
family in Britain could live without a car, I reasoned, then surely we were that
family.
But
my new car-free idea, sadly, wasn't shared by my family. My teenage daughters were
horrified. What would their friends think about our family being "too poor
to afford a car"? (I wasn't that bothered what they thought, and I suggested
the girls should take the same approach.)
My
friends, too, were astonished at our plan. What would happen if someone got seriously
ill overnight and needed to go to hospital? (an ambulance) How would the children
get to and from their many events? (buses and trains) People smiled as though this
was another of my mad ideas, before saying they were sure I'd soon realize that
a car was a necessity.
Eight
months later, I wonder whether we'll ever own a car again. The idea that you "have
to" own a car, especially if you live in a city, is all in the mind. I live—and
many other citizens do too—in a place that has never been better served by public
transport, and yet car ownership has never been higher. We worry about rising car
costs, but we'd be better off asking something much more basic: Do I really need
a car? Certainly the answer is no, and I'm a lot richer because I dare to ask the
question.
