The problem with public transport

[editor]

Tax, insurance, depreciation, maintainence, petrol ect ect ect £26 a week. I think not.

And the cost of buying the thing.

 

[geminisnake]

Tax, insurance, depreciation, maintenance, petrol etc etc etc £26 a week. I think not.

My car sure as shit doesn't cost anything like £26 a week to keep on the road I couldn't afford that!!

£180 tax + £160 insurance, £150 maintenance a year(ish), petrol approx £360 yr = £17 a week
Oh, make that £18 I forgot the MOT certificate.

The cost was over 4 yrs ago and long since made up.

 

[chymaera]

My car sure as shit doesn't cost anything like £26 a week to keep on the road I couldn't afford that!!

£180 tax + £160 insurance, £150 maintenance a year(ish), petrol approx £360 yr = £17 a week
Oh, make that £18 I forgot the MOT certificate.

You forgot the origal purchase price and the depreciation.

 

[keybored]

You forgot the origal purchase price and the depreciation.

Surely you don't count the purchase price? Just the depreciation.

 

[geminisnake]

You forgot the origal purchase price and the depreciation.

No I didn't, I wrote The cost was over 4 yrs ago and long since made up.
Depreciation doesn't really matter coz I'll have him til he dies.

Not going to argue about it.

 

[chymaera]

Surely you don't count the purchase price? Just the depreciation.

You have to count all the costs and work out both fixed and running costs.

 

[keybored]

You have to count all the costs and work out both fixed and running costs.

I'm aware of that. But you don't count the original purchase price and the depreciation, which is what your post seemed to suggest.

Eg. I buy a car for £9000. I sell it two years later for £5000. I have lost £4000 on it, not £13,000.

 

[editor]

Eg. I buy a car for £9000. I sell it two years later for £5000. I have lost £4000 on it, not £13,000.

So that's £2,000 per annum to be added to your running costs.

 

[chymaera]

I'm aware of that. But you don't count the original purchase price and the depreciation, which is what your post seemed to suggest.

Eg. I buy a car for £9000. I sell it two years later for £5000. I have lost £4000 on it, not £13,000.

You still have to save the money for a new one or find the finance.

 

[Gromit]

You have to count all the costs and work out both fixed and running costs.

Whatever the true cost of my car over a week is (and I only buy cheap cars so depreciation is like £3 a week max) the true cost is in time and a minimum 9 hours a week saved (468 hours a year) is priceless. Thats a whole extra night. Time is finite. We all wish we had more time for everything we need to do.

 

[Cobbles]

So that's £2,000 per annum to be added to your running costs.

Or you buy an old nail for 500 quid, tidy it, use it and sell it 2 years later for 600 quid.

Or you buy a classic that actually appreciates - ideal if your mileage is low as it's road tax free as well.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to put a value on the flexibility and freedom that personal transport provides - that's priceless......

 

[editor]

Or you buy an old nail for 500 quid, tidy it, use it and sell it 2 years later for 600 quid.

An 'old nail' invariably conks out costing you a whole load more in the long run. And the chance of making vast profits on dirt-cheap old cars without investing time and money is fairly remote.

Sorry to disturb your pro-car financial fantasy world, btw.

 

[keybored]

So that's £2,000 per annum to be added to your running costs.

Yes.

You still have to save the money for a new one or find the finance.

*Bangs head against screen*

 

[Cobbles]

An 'old nail' invariably conks out costing you a whole load more in the long run. And the chance of making vast profits on dirt-cheap old cars without investing time and money is fairly remote.

Sorry to disturb your pro-car financial fantasy world, btw.

I bow to your superior knowledge - I've only sold 6 cheap old cars at a profit over the last 12 years so I clearly know naff all.

 

[laptop]

Surely you don't count the purchase price? Just the depreciation.

You have to count the price of the money for the purchase and the depreciation.

If you borrow the money to buy, the cost of the money is obvious: the interest.

If you buy cash, it's less obvious but nonzero - it's the interest you could have obtained by investing it, or, less easy to evaluate, the "opportunity cost" - the value of what else you could have done with the money (a sabattical somewhere...)

 

[editor]

I bow to your superior knowledge - I've only sold 6 cheap old cars at a profit over the last 12 years so I clearly know naff all.

And you didn't spend a second doing them up or have to invest a single penny in any one of them, yes?

Sure you did. No really. I'm convinced!

 

[geminisnake]

If you buy cash, it's less obvious but nonzero - it's the interest you could have obtained by investing it, or, less easy to evaluate, the "opportunity cost" - the value of what else you could have done with the money (a sabattical somewhere...)

I would have earned about £200 in interest, but it costs over £1.10(dunno what coz I used the bus last about 2yrs ago) to get into town, so that's over £2 every time you leave the house. If you get shopping you need a taxi to get home(I have a shoulder injury so can't carry much) so that's £6-7 a time.
That's if I only want to go to the local town.

If I want to go further afield forget it. The local bus also only runs about 5 times a day, better than nowt but not good.

 

[geminisnake]

And you didn't spend a second doing them up or have to invest a single penny in any one of them, yes?

Sure you did. No really. I'm convinced!

My VW has gone through 2 MOTs with no work needed. It does happen

 

[laptop]

Odds that cobbles visits bookies: 5-1 on.






That's a dead cert, isn't it? I can never understand odds, but I don't have to, because I understand enough about statistics and selective memory for expenditure and losses never to go to a bookie.

 

[editor]

My VW has gone through 2 MOTs with no work needed. It does happen

You're completely missing the point. He's claiming he can buy an "old nail" of a car for £500, run it for two years and then sell it on at a substantial profit without investing any time or a single penny.

 

[chymaera]

You're completely missing the point. He's claiming he can buy an "old nail" of a car for £500, run it for two years and then sell it on at a substantial profit without investing any time or a single penny.

Quite, no new tyres, no new exhaust system, no new brake components, no bodywork repair.

 

[soulman]

You're completely missing the point. He's claiming he can buy an "old nail" of a car for £500, run it for two years and then sell it on at a substantial profit without investing any time or a single penny.

No offence matey, but your off topic crap was an open invite to him and others on this thread now.

 

[editor]

No offence matey, but your off topic crap was an open invite to him and others on this thread now.

What "off topic crap" please?

 

[soulman]

Go live in the country then because cities have been full up with 'people you don't know' for hundreds of years.

"Fuck off back to Russia"

 

[Cobbles]

You have to count the price of the money for the purchase and the depreciation.

If you borrow the money to buy, the cost of the money is obvious: the interest.

If you buy cash, it's less obvious but nonzero - it's the interest you could have obtained by investing it, or, less easy to evaluate, the "opportunity cost" - the value of what else you could have done with the money (a sabattical somewhere...)

Ah indeed, what about the opportunity cost of the time wasted in squalid bus shelters full of saddos, time that could have been spent saving the planet or bringing peace to the Middle East.

 

[_angel_]

Whatever the true cost of my car over a week is (and I only buy cheap cars so depreciation is like £3 a week max) the true cost is in time and a minimum 9 hours a week saved (468 hours a year) is priceless. Thats a whole extra night. Time is finite. We all wish we had more time for everything we need to do.

This is the point: the time aspect.

Some places (like Leeds) have such an awful bus service corresponding to the size of the city (and very very few local trains run) that you are practically forced to drive.

It took me two hours to get to and fro work (two bus nightmares) when people I was working with were travelling further across the county and getting there and back in about a quarter of the time.

Do you want to spend your entire time waiting for a bus in the cold and dark?

Some places (like London or Oxford) that have good public transport systems I can't see why you'd need to drive, but other places aren't like that.

 

[twisted_angel]

Go live in the country then because cities have been full up with 'people you don't know' for hundreds of years.

He has a point, if i ever choose to take a bus i can guarantee that there is usually at least one person on it that i know
I'm happy with public transport these days though i admit i usually only use it if taking cherub into town, its changed so much since mine were small, no more balancing a tot under your arm while trying to fold a pushchair up one handed and carrying all your bags, they lower the buses and you just wheel it on..its great, and if there are some unsociable youths sitting at the front of the bus so old people and people with pushchairs cant sit down i tell them to stop being ignorant and fuck of!

 

[Cobbles]

And you didn't spend a second doing them up or have to invest a single penny in any one of them, yes?

I don't spreadsheet my hobbies, although I do value my leisure time which is why I'm not keen on frittering it away uselessly standing at bus stops in the rain.

As far as I can recall, the most I've ever spent in one lump was £400 on a bit of welding on an XJ6 - anything else was just basic maintenance (plugs/oil/filters/pattern brake pads). I only do about 2-4,000 road miles/year so not much wears out.

Buy low, sell high - hardly rocket science. Stick to Jags and Mercedes 5+ years old that've done most of their depreciating, bargain hard with trade guide to the fore, waving a wad of cash and you won't go far wrong.

public transport is like renting property - you may as well just flush tenners down the lavy.

 

[Cid]

An alternative form of public transport that car users will want to use rather than trying to force them to use what's available now. What do you think of the idea of those pod things in the guardian piece?

It would be great to see something like that, but it would also be vastly expensive and require full commitment of government and people. You'd need to keep roads (emergency services, large deliveries etc) so the track would have to be suspended. There are also going to be the omnipresent 'security issues', huge maintenance expenses and safety problems. They're not very fast either (although averaging 20mph in a city is going to be fine).

 

[soulman]

It would be great to see something like that, but it would also be vastly expensive and require full commitment of government and people. You'd need to keep roads (emergency services, large deliveries etc) so the track would have to be suspended. There are also going to be the omnipresent 'security issues', huge maintenance expenses and safety problems. They're not very fast either (although averaging 20mph in a city is going to be fine).

From that article:

1967: Len Blake at the British Electrical Company begins developing Cabtrack, which planned a network of overhead guideways for Birmingham and central London. The project is shelved in 1972 due to cost and visual intrusion.

As you say it would be expensive but I like the idea of overhead or suspended guideways in cities. I suppose more than anything it means challenging the dominant idea that cities should be planned around car travel.