UK Inches Closer To Eliminating Private Car Ownership

Soon, Brits will own nothing and will be happier for it…

UK Government Transport Minister Trudy Harrison recently spoke at a mobility conference, addressing the future of personal mobility. In her comments, she said it was necessary to ditch the "20th-century thinking centred around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport." That’s right, she said the quiet part loud and showed the hand of a growing number of government officials.

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Rhode57 · 56-60, M

Dont get me wrong its a good idea .To many people are lazy and take a car when there is no need .You go to any supermarket and the carparks are nearly always packed and I guarantee that most live within 2/3 miles of the store usually closer .Why not walk or catch a bus and if you have alot of shopping a taxi back home .If everyone did that , imagine the cars that you would take off the road .Another one is parents running their kids to school and most live within walking distance .If kids walked , caught a bus or rode a bicycle there would be no more traffic jams in the morning and no jams at school letting out time .
I rode 3 miles to high school and home again .In junior school we walked a mile and a half or so .Didnt do us any harm .People need to change their habits and reliance on the motor car .

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Rhode57 I agree - though would point out two possible reasons for such needless uses of the car, and those would be difficult to solve.

One is that the supermarket trade was built on encouraging car use only, and before on-line shopping started to hurt them, they went about hollowing out town-centres to their own advantage. To be fair many will now deliver, and run entirely mail-order services - though I don't know to what extent this narrows your choices still further.

The other - the school runs - may reflect a fear, real or not, that the streets are just too dangerous for unaccompanied children; but working parents may not have the time to walk their offspring to school then return home and drive to work. Genuinely not have time I mean, not through their own bad domestic planning.

Why are they driving to work as well? Perhaps because, as happened with my employer when it was forced to move to a rural location, their work site is remote from public transport.

Rhode57 · 56-60, M

@ArishMell I agree , however if all those who didnt need to stopped using their cars which I guarantee is over 75 percent then it wouldnt be dangerous and they could all walk with their friends who would also be walking