Giving Up The Car

[barry1010]

I am thinking about not replacing my car when it is time to send it to the graveyard. I don't use it for commuting and I am using taxis more and more (when I go to the local hospitals as there are never parking spaces).
Using the bus is not an option. Is there any sort of mileage cut off point where it would be more economical to use taxis for shorter journeys and hire a car for holidays and things?
Has anyone else done this?

[barry1010]

We used to be a two car family, too, Vagus, but have just had the one for a good few years now. We don't miss the second car.

[ladybirder]

It's the convenience that does it for me. That's worth it's weight in gold;-)

[bednobs]

Hi barry, another consideration is that in people's lives, "giving up" driving is (imo) much more of a milestone than learning to drive, and although you sound like you are emotionally ready for it my belief is that you are an older gentleman? You perhaps need to consider the effort involved in re-starting should you need to

[allenlondon]

Watch it, barry. Time rushes on, old age and infirmity lurk round the next corner. And jump out without warning.

I could walk, a bit, and cycle, maybe even get to a bus stop.

Not any more.

Mrs A could do most things till this year. Now she can’t.

Unless there’s a pressing reason, I would KEEP your wheels!

A

[Buenchico]

>>> even the blue badgers have to pay

You've got blue badgers in your part of the country? They're black and white everywhere else!
;-)

(On a serious note though, if you're a regular user of the hospital car park, it might be asking if there are any discount schemes available. For example, as an oncology patient at Ipswich Hospital, I pay just £3 to cover a total of 10 parking sessions, with no limit on how long I stay for on each occasion).

I didn't pass my driving test until I was 37 because, up until then, I'd been living in Sheffield, where there were 17 buses per hour passing near to my house all day and all evening, with a skeleton service of buses running through the small hours of the night too. I found it far cheaper to use public transport (including taking occasional taxis when, say, I had to get to an urgent meeting) than to consider learning to drive and buying a car.

Then I moved to Suffolk, where a car became far more useful due to there being less public transport available. So that's when I starting taking driving lessons. I later had a few years of being largely unemployed though, and couldn't afford to run a car, so I've experienced life without one here too.

For me, while a car isn't totally 'essential', it certainly makes life a lot easier. For example, it costs me about £3.50 in fuel to drive to the hospital and back, whereas it would cost £70 by taxi. (Even the charity-run transport service, which tries to help cut the costs of getting to and from hospital, charges over £40 for the return trip. As I'm currently attending the radiotherapy department on 37 consecutive weekdays, there's no way that I could afford such prices!). I can get there and back by taking two buses (or a train and a bus) but it adds considerably to the time taken out of my day just to attend a 15-minute appointment!

So I'm not rushing to get rid of my car but I can understand why you might be considering it if the taxi costs that you'd be facing were significantly less than what I'd have to pay. (It's also worth thinking about things like shopping. Some people are happy to order everything online but I still prefer to browse around the supermarket aisles, so a car is useful to me in that respect).

However we can't really advise you with regard to a 'mileage cut-off point' without knowing how near or far you are from the places you need to get to and how often you'd need to get there. Only you've got that information available to you, so it's only you who can do the sums.

[Canary42]

///Has anyone else done this?///

Yes, I did it when I retired and lost my company car. I kept it up for 5 or so years but family reasons compelled me to get self-mobile again.

During that time I used public transport, hire cars (about half a dozen times a year), and very very rarely taxis (not keen on the last of these as I didn't like listening to the Hard Right Wing drivers putting the country to rights on my journey). The biggest problem was the early closing time of public transport, especially buses in winter.