The space on our drive

We have more space on our drive than most. We have a small courtyard garden in front of our garage (which is used for storage and as a workshop). I don't mean that we have done what some of our neighbours have - turned the drive into a garden, and are using the street or pavement as storage for our car. No. 

Eighteen months ago we got rid of the car. And we don't miss it one bit. 

When Viv was ill, the car was useful. Indeed, we couldn't have done what we did - go on holidays, go out to shops and hospital appointments - with her in a wheelchair without the car. 

But even before that - back in 2016 - we were questioning whether we really needed one. For a whole year - March 2016 to March 2017 - I kept a record of every expense we incurred relating to the car - insurance, tax, maintenance, fuel, cleaning and washing - everything. I also kept scrupulous records of our mileage and purpose of journeys.

Financial costs of car usage

At the end of that time I was able to look at the costs of the car objectively. This is what most people don't do: they will incur a cost, perhaps £500 to get through the MOT, but then they'll forget that when thinking about the cost of their car - they'll just think about fuel, which may be about 20p per mile. The 'sunk cost' of servicing is ignored, as if they think it won't occur again - but of course, in some form, it will.

I was actually quite shocked. Travelling by car was costing us almost 80 pence per mile - that's right. Our mileage was low, around 2000 miles in that year; our costs were a tad under £1600. We'd needed a new alternator, and a couple of tyres, that put the cost up, but, as I said, similar costs would happen in any year.

Taxis only cost a couple of pounds per mile!

We decided to ditch the car and walk and use bus or train when we wanted to travel more than a couple of miles, and use taxis when necessary. Viv's illness put this on hold for a couple of years but We are spending a few hundred a year on taxis, but our costs are not what we had in the days of car ownership. 

Physical health benefits

We've also found other benefits. Firstly, my physical health - although far from perfect - is better than it was when I drove, even just a few miles a week to the shops. Walking is actually good for you. I've had hardly any back trouble, and when I do get a twinge a walk seems to work it off. As Viv recovered, walking was actually really good for her, building up her strength and helping her cope with her vestibular limitations. Some will say that we could get fit at the gym, like many do, and keep on using the car - but at what cost, and why turn down the benefits of free exercise in the fresh air to go and grunt with many others in a sweaty gym? 

Improved mental health 

Years ago, in my twenties, I used to write. I wrote for a motorbike club magazine, had a couple of bits in a national mag, and then got fed up with the world of motorbikes and got into the fringes of the music business, writing lyrics and songs and getting involved in production work. This was always on the side, I had a day job; having got myself a mortgage I couldn't give that up. 

I became very aware of the creative process, and how critical, analytical, thinking leads you to ideas that may be unique, and from these comes the good, artistic, stuff - whether written, musical, or, perhaps, visual. You need time for that thought. I used to get it walking through London, or perhaps lying awake at night. In more recent times I've found the morning and evening rail commute good for writing, because it is a another time when I could work things out in my head, note down ideas, and explore them without having to think about too much else.

You can't think like that when driving. My ideas for music dried up in the 1990s soon after I changed jobs to one where I drove to and from work, and indeed drove quite a bit for work too. I used to have ideas, but seldom the opportunity to write them down, and certainly not to develop them. When driving you have to concentrate. You can't think freely. For some people, this means their daily life has too little time for them to think about what's going on around them, they are, in fact,'too busy' to think. I was like that for many years, stressed out by work and money worries, with too little time to work out how to solve them. Therein lay a route to all sorts of mental and physical illness; I managed to sort things out eventually, but only after getting time in my life to think matter through.  

I've wondered perhaps if the prevalance of company cars as an employment benefit in recent decades has partly been because CEOs are keen to keep their employees busy, and not having time to think about the often pointless or stupid things they have to do to earn a living. 

There are other benefits to mental health. We never have any worries about servicing, or any shock bills from the garage, or surprise parking tickets. We don't have to worry about car repayments, or how long our car will last, or where we will find the money from to make the final payment.

The car can be an inflexible option

I don't know, but I believe that many people use their car because they believe it to be the flexible option. Our experience is, however, that other forms of transport - in the area we live -  can actually be just as, if not more, flexible.

• You can have that extra glass of wine if you're using public transport or a taxi
• If doing a walk, you don't have to do a circular walk - you can start and finish at different (for example) railway stations
• You don't have to worry about finding somewhere to park when you get somewhere, or when your car park ticket expires when you are there, or whether you can easily get back to your car when you want to leave 

Environmental benefits

Viv and I probably aren't the most green of people, but - despite owning a number of smokey two-stroke motorbikes and a '66 Jaguar 3.8 that would do no more than 17 to the gallon (10 when in a poor state of tune) in my past - I do think we should be careful about what we pump into the atmosphere. Politicians have made a mess of presenting environmental problems to the public; carbon dioxide is bad long-term, but particulates are killers now, and that blue or black smoke from exhausts or tyres, and the black brake dust on wheels, those are particulates. 

You could argue that wear and tear on shoes gives rise to microplastic / particulate pollution (unless you have leather soles, but then of course there's the methane generated by the cattle that donated their skins for your shoes ...). It probably does, but not as much as produced by vehicle exhausts, tyres and brakes. 

We should care about our, and each other's, respiratory health. We should use cars (and vans and other vehicles) as little as we can. So Viv and I do. And trains - especially electric ones -  produce far fewer particulates per passenger-mile than motor cars, I'm sure.

(You might suggest an electric car, because it's emission-free. No it isn't. Not only can there be a question of how the electricity was generated, but also the tyres and brake pads wear, producing particulates; and then there's the question of how all the plastics, and nasty chemicals in the batteries, will be disposed of when the time comes...)

More space at home 

Responsible people keep their cars on their drive, or in a garage. They keep them off the road. 

Many people don't, of course, but Viv and I do not feel it right that we should leave what is basically our 'stuff' in the street so that drivers or pedestrians have to get round it. We always used to keep our car on the drive, and did at the previous place we lived; before that, we lived in a flat, and kept it in the assigned parking space. (Big fines were handed out to anyone who didn't park where they were meant to... why isn't that more common?)

Selling the car gave us a space perhaps sixteen feet by ten where we used to keep the car. That's now a sheltered courtyard garden, something of a suntrap through the early afternoon, currently the home to, among other plants, a couple of lemon trees and a banana plant. A table and a couple of chairs complete a pleasant enclave where we can sit and have a coffee in the afternoon.

It was never thus in the days of car ownership.