PowerSwitch

[/img]

Sadly, not far from what we're being told.

Mandelson considers car loan aid

Lord Mandelson said the Treasury was considering offering commercial loans or loan guarantees to help the industry "bridge a very difficult period".

Full story BBC, 9 Jan 2009

Encourage the taking out of personal loans and the purchase of more, mostly imported, cars. Great, just what the country needs.

----------

No apologies for reposting a fine video: Bikes taking over the streets, Bogotá

Gives a whole new meaning to the term FIAT CURRENCY . . .

Good comment! I have the maths somewhere in Swedish but I challenge you to work this out:
A man says "I save time by owning a car"
Ask him how much time he saves a week
Then ask him how much his car costs.
Then ask him how long he has to work to earn the money to pay the car.

You will find YOU SPEND MORE TIME WORKING TO PAY THE CAR THAN YOU SAVE BY OWNING AND USING IT.

Max

I'm a management accountant, I work stuff like this out professionally, well, I don't, but its what I'm trained to do.

My car, and the time it takes to drive costs me £4300 a year

Public transport, and the time it takes to travel costs £7124 a year

Thats before the tram breaks down or the bus doesnt turn up

DominicJ wrote:Max

I'm a management accountant, I work stuff like this out professionally, well, I don't, but its what I'm trained to do.

My car, and the time it takes to drive costs me £4300 a year

Public transport, and the time it takes to travel costs £7124 a year

Thats before the tram breaks down or the bus doesnt turn up

Is that to do the same job and live the same lifestyle that you do now?

Or could you take a lower paid job nearer home, where you don't need a car, have more free time, and do less damage to the environment? A management accountant who's studied permaculture has a brain that works differently .

Dominic. You know best... and in the UK I can imagine there are areas of poor and expensive public transport, combined with personal choice of commute, that refute my hypothesis.

Just let me check:
Travelling time is worked out in minutes
Time saved, minutes=((Public transport time - (Time used for car on journey + time needed to look after car))

Time needed to work to pay for car - savings

Nothing would make me happier than a job round the corner, even if it meant a paycut, but sadly, career prospects demand quite unreasonable things, a job round the corner would be a dead ender.

I'm likely to have to travel further for my next one, although to be fair, getting a next job is likely to become keeping this one.

Peak Oil Preps aint cheap, so I travel.

Is British Airways considered public transport?

Max
Cost of Public transport was

Monetary Cost of public transport
Monetary cost of the time spent on public transport (after tax)

Cost of Car was

Monetary cost of
Petrol, insurance, servicing/spares/repairs and the car, assuming theres 20,000 miles in my suzuki, probably overly prudent, and then the time cost.

Public transport is slightly cheaper until you work out how much money I lose in wages, it takes twice as long to take public transport as it does to drive.
Even if I was on minimum wage, that difference alone says drive.

If I bought a new Toyota Celica every three years, the numbers would swing towards public transport.

But as I've said elsewhere, only the mad (or those with damned good reasons) buy new cars.

DominicJ wrote:Max

I'm a management accountant, I work stuff like this out professionally, well, I don't, but its what I'm trained to do.

My car, and the time it takes to drive costs me £4300 a year

Public transport, and the time it takes to travel costs £7124 a year

Thats before the tram breaks down or the bus doesnt turn up

I find I can work on public transport, something not possible if I was driving, a big advantage. For local journeys I bike (no gym membership necessary). I'm also saving hundreds of pounds per month not running a car (depreciation, petrol etc). For those that assume big (massive?) petrol price rises in the future that will further change the equation.

It's a shame that cars have become status symbols. If you don't have one you're regarded as being poor or eccentric. There's nothing wrong with cars, and they are very appropriate for some people, but the problem is that the planet can't support anywhere near the number there are at the moment. Unfortunately, almost every aspect of modern life has been built around everyone having access to one.

I think the people who can get away from the need to have a car for their exclusive use are the ones who will be best prepared for PO. Perhaps the extra cost, if there is one at present, of not having a car is a good investment, just as much as wood stoves, PV, guns and food stores.

What I find scary is that personal ownership of a car is gradually being "hardwired" into the system. It's becoming difficult to do without a car. Out of town shopping centres, death of the high street, deterioration in public transport (e.g. cancelled bus services), removal of train subsidies/record rises in train ticket prices. Yes - and the car as a status symbol in the media.

A vicious circle - the more car drivers there are the more hardwiring takes place.

It also doesn't make sense that there are public transport systems built for commuters, that carry massive traffic for a few hours a couple of times a day, and are lightly used the rest of the time, while there is poor or no public transport outside the big cities. That's not an argument for car use, but one for having local employment spread around the country. Look what all those *ankers commuting to London have done to us.

And most jobs seem to revolve around driving, or at least being able to. Having said that I once got offered a job whose advert said you needed a "Clean Driving Licence" (I haven't even got a dirty one!), apparently people are so used to putting this in job requirements they now do so without thinking. But (unless it's obvious, like repairing wind turbines on site) it's always worth asking.