It was great to see Kris Murrin on Channel 4 trying to persuade the people of Durham to get out of their cars for one day and walk or bike to work. We need more people like Kris who are willing to stake all on bringing about the changes in behaviour that we all need to make. But as part of a family who gave up their car over ten years ago, I couldn’t help but feel the programme only served to highlight how far it is we all still have to go.
If I had the time in my busy entrepreneurial schedule, I’d start a club specially for people who have, or are thinking of, giving up their car. It’s not until you’ve lived it that you realise how more pleasant a lifestyle it is to be cycling, walking or playing cards with the kids on the train rather than having them ask “Are we nearly there yet” from the back seat in between hitting each other out of boredom. I can honestly say that I get the same feeling of freedom from zipping around on my bike (yes, I admit it, with my iPod on) as Jeremy Clarkson does from his cars.
If all the people who didn’t have a car banded together as a vocal majority, we could set a higher benchmark than just walking or cycling for one day. We could also encourage others to join us, and show freedom from the car as what it is – a healthy happier and more sociable lifestyle.
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Hey Jamie,
Take a look at this video of the founder of US company Zipcar. (Though I suspect you will already know about them…)
People pay for cars by the hour or day. As she points out, the genius here is that it changes the incentives. If you've paid for a car outright, there's little incentive to - for example - not drive to work every day, or even to the shop for milk. The result: the one hundred thousand Zipcar members drive 500 miles a year, not the 12,000 miles of the average commuter. (Though how much of this is because zipcar members would be less likely to drive anyway? That would be a really useful question to answer.)
There are car-share schemes in the UK, but no-one seems to be doing anything on this kind of scale. The flexibility of the technology they use seems to be the key.
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