Comment by lucaspiller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucaspiller | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to go against the norm: I recently bought my first car (I'm nearly 30) and am amazed how much time it saves and freedom it gives me. I've always lived in European cities with good public transport, but even here having a car is worthwhile.

Instead of taking a train and bus 30+ minutes to work, I leave when I want and know it will take me around 15 minutes to get there. Maybe I'm weird, but I find driving a lot more relaxing than public transport (at the moment it's really hot here so AC helps). If I want to get groceries I can stop in a supermarket on my way home from work, instead of walking 15 minutes each way (bonus: it also has a bigger selection and cheaper prices).

If I want to get out of the city it's easy, I can drive for 20 minutes instead of taking trains and buses for 1 1/2 hours and I'm at the sea. Before if I wanted to do that I'd book a car from a rental place, go collect it, return it hoping I didn't get any scratches, where as now I can be spontaneous.

Having a car can be expensive (I estimate over the life of my car it'll cost me around €2000/year + fuel) but for the benefits it provides, to me that is a justifiable cost.

I've got to say I've had the opposite experience, moving from London to rural England, where a car is necessary to have any sort of flexibility (to go to work, shop, take kids to nursery etc).

I'm learning to hate cars. The damn things are a time sink. In the UK we have to take cars for MOT each year and generally we service once a year. That's two half days gone, but I try to make best use of the time by working in a coffee shop while it happens.

Then there are the unforeseen things. Door locks breaking. Tyre replacements. Punctures. Remembering to top up the air in the tyres. Washing them (I pay for someone to do this, but it's still something on your mind). Replacing wipers. And the wiper fluid of course. Checking oil and tyre pressure.

Just the sheer time I spend in petrol stations. Why aren't all petrol stations self pay? I try to avoid ones where I have to go into a shop but it's not always possible.

Insurance. Oh great, the yearly "you raised my premium 10% but I can see I can get it cheaper online" phone call. I resent having to make this.

And then there's the cost.

Sorry, that turned into a rant.

If you actually use the thing regularly it more than makes up for itself. You say it's "necessary" but what you mean is that it's the best available option by such a large amount that no other option is worth considering.

You could hire a chauffeur and make him take the car for MOT and everything else but that's so much more expensive that you don't consider it an option. You could get a bike and put some milk crates on the back but that's so much less effective you don't consider it an option.

There's very few true necessities. A lot of resources can be saved if you manage to identify a "necessity" that you can work around by leveraging specific aspects of your situation.

All true. In our case we "leverage specific aspects of our situation" (nice ;) ) by only having one car because I work at home. If we had two the above might be doubled!

A lot of people think too rigidly to accept that some people could really benefit from owning a car.

For me it's a much tougher decision because the costs are much higher due to mandatory both-ways insurance being required. I basically can't afford to have both savings and a car where I live. Damn shame though, because I would benefit immensely from having a light truck (something the size of a Hilux). If I want to bring handguns to a range, the law basically requires that I own an automobile. If I want to get construction materials or inexpensive/exotic Korean groceries, I need an automobile.

Your estimate for the cost of owning your vehicle is actually considerably lower than just having a public transit pass for that same year where I live.

> I find driving a lot more relaxing than public transport

+1 from me. Public transport in London is a nightmare during rush hour, I'd happily trade that for an equivalent drive. Probably wouldn't be (much?) more expensive either.

I'm the other way around. The city I live in has a lot of trams. Driving in the city is unpleasant because I don't drive much, so my confidence on the road is low, and complex intersections and road layouts with frequent trams can be kind of scary. It's much lower stress and more pleasant to just hop on a tram and tune out for a bit until it's time to get off or change.

The tube during rush hour is a special kind of hell. People do it because driving through London at those times is pointless, you'd never arrive. Lesson learned the hard way.

You know what can be even better ?

Car with a driver. Flexibility + you get to do other stuff besides driving.

But I guess affording that means more work and stuff.

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