Carless, careless, couldn't care less?

I am carless again. Not sure if it was an act of generosity, a gesture in the direction of green living, a parental response to a carless daughter who could use some mobility and convenience for a couple of weeks. A mixture of these and other less obvious motives. Anyway, my car is away on holiday to Edinburgh. This will be an occasional but not drastic incovenience. I'll still get to work. Two lengthy journeys planned this week can be done on the train, an education in patience, perhaps endurance, and certainly soul-training in greeting the unpredictable with either trusting equanimity or resigned and determined cheerfulness. Autonomous mobility is often important to any one of us, and at the moment we are working on the basis that those who have two cars should lend their daughter one!

It's an interesting experience to hand over a car for a couple of weeks. The actual mechanical, physical, four-wheeled transporter will not be missed from the front window. But the freedom it represents, and which you get so used to, to go wherever, the independence of private available mobility, the convenience to cover miles in minutes, whether to visit someone else, go to B&Q, head out to that contemporary oasis of therapeutic ambience, the coffee shop - that needs some additional forethought, planning, and some of it may not get done because public transport would be such a pain!

It does raise an interesting question about car-sharing in families or at work though. My car is insured for two other named people apart from my wife and myself, my daughter and a colleague. Costs a bit more on insurance, but it does make life more flexible for others, if not for me when the car is with someone else. Maybe in a two car family if one of them was insured for several other occasional users it would provide the benefit of a car when really necessary without multiplying ownership. Would that be living wittily? Am I on to something, or am I trying to console myself by claiming an act of reckless generosity and intentional inconvenience was social responsibility in disguise!?

Comments

[Ron H]

My car insurance permits me to drive any other car with the permission of the owner. So I can borrow your car without any added expense! The problem with multiple drivers is the no claims bonus, two drivers doubles the risk etc. Why don't you buy your daughter a car for Christmas? That'll solve all your problems in one go...

[Jim Gordon]

Thank you for your constructive and prohibitively expensive suggestion RH! I don't have a problem to solve, but a daughter to indulge - which is what dad's are for, or so I am told!She's worth every mile I have to walk in the rain, every train I have to wait for. Commitment to worthile things is about handling the inconvenience it inevitably costs - this is a lesson i am still learning!