Simplifying Life

Charis

ceridwen wrote: »

Well - and this has come sooner than I expected - just as well I changed my signature to what has turned out to be unexpectedly topical today.


I have been thinking that its time petrol rationing was introduced to help combat the use of biofuel for filling peoples cartanks and to help "spin out" the oil we have available for as long as possible - so, hopefully, there will be some left for our children and our childrens children.
I favour a ration of 50 miles per household per week for those in urban areas (ie towns and cities) with a sliding scale to allow proportionately more for those living in more rural areas (so as not to disadvantage those living "in the back of beyond"). Taxis and public transport to be exempt.

I feel it is time we consigned such concepts as "going for a ride" in a car or using cars for journeys that we could walk in less than 30 minutes to the history books. Peoples perception as to when its necessary to use a car would alter dramatically if there were a fuel ration for them.

I agree up to a point. My elderly neighbours all use their cars to go shopping and could not manage 3 minutes walk with a heavy bag. Most do not have offspring living nearby. There will be a sudden rush of 'exceptions' including those with genuine mobility problems. Petrol will become a black market commodity.

The current transport system, with the exception of cities like London, is totally inadequate. We have buses here that do a once a day trip to some places. Miss the return bus and you are stuffed. I can drive to my friend's home in fifteen minutes. The alternative is a bus once a week on Wednesdays and almost a mile walk up a rutted track. And another mile back down.

I remember, when I lived in London, dragging toddlers, pushchair and shopping on buses before they were adapted. It was considered a crime by fellow passengers to take your toddlers and their paraphernalia with you. I had no choice. There were no online grocery deliveries in those days.

My friend who has epilepsy, so cannot drive calls this town her 'open prison'. I dread to think of being trapped here with no way to get out, picturesque though it is. Until there is a good local transport system (and decent public toilets, given the long waits in the cold) rationing people's petrol will not be well received. These things have been overcome in Japan, where my friend has just spent the last two weeks on holiday. They could be done here if our taxes were spent more wisely. Of course those who make the decisions are not those who pay the true cost.

PS I just calculated that if you work in the nearest town to ours (there is virtually no work here) you would need petrol for 75 miles a week for work alone. There is not a bus service which takes you there and back in time for work. The train is subject to frequent cancellations/delays, and would mean a very long walk to and from the (loo-less, open air) station for the residents at this end of town, in every kind of weather.

ceridwen

hi Charis

The 50 miles would be the basis. People living more "in the wilds" is where the sliding scale would come in to factor in the extra miles from nearest urban centre appropriately. I wouldnt see it as a hardship level ration (just a genuine needs ration). 50 miles would be very generous - and mainly unused - to someone like myself - hence my sliding scale, so that people wouldnt be disadvantaged for living in the countryside.

Shopping - I see your point. I could see the range of shopping trolleys expanding dramatically here to include a lot more "stylish" ones - to avoid the need for carrying shopping bags (which is very tiring - I agree). Certainly the range of permanent type shopping bags has leapt dramatically since it became widely known as antisocial to use plastic bags - where were all these lovely bags for the last few decades when I was looking for them? But loads of them here now.

We now have shopping on line - which will solve many peoples problems. Work vehicles would be allowed unrationed fuel (provided they were used for work purposes only).

Public transport leaves a lot to be desired at present - and the pressure would be on it to come up with the goods - in terms of more buses/suitably adapted buses/etc - and its certainly long past time the buses were renationalised (why on EARTH were they put in private hands in the first place?). Railways - Dr Beeching and his shutting of railway lines is a problem (and a huge vested interest I gather - I didnt know he was apparently employed by the car industry.......hmmmmmm!!).

I think we can have a perfectly workable pleasant society to live in with the adaptations we need to make in this respect - and its certainly an incentive to know that we have no option - or else other people elsewhere literally starve (and - thinking of the enlightened self-interest argument here - create trouble for us in the more prosperous West in the process).

I was calculating how this would impact personally on me for instance - I've used 8 car miles in the last week, dont think I used any the previous week, 10 the one before - so plenty for necessity purposes (but not enough to allow me to "go for a drive" or ride where I could easily walk).

Another aspect, I gather, which would help as well is if illegal drivers were all taken off the road - there would be more resources and a heck of a lot more road space for everyone else. I was surprised to hear that the roads would be a lot emptier if they werent out on them - I know some people avoid taxing and insuring their cars, etc - but I didnt realise theres apparently large numbers of people involved in this.

There would be many plus points to living more locally - it would certainly help towards the regeneration of communities and less pressure for land to be used for yet more roadbuilding - not all doom and gloom Charis - many "silver linings" and ways life would be more pleasant.

champys

I would have no problems with a 50 miles fuel ration - actually with the cost of fuel skyrocketing, it is effectively being rationed for a lot of people anyway!
But I also see practical problems for those living more isolated. You can easily have a planned 'once-a-week' trip to town (we do that anyway). But what if you then suddenly have to have a doctor's appointment, or cat falls ill and needs to see the vet, or you want to join the local choral society which is still 8 miles away?

There is a guy in a village near us (who is considered somewhat eccentric by most), who takes his 20-mile round trip to Lidls by horse and cart! Just as well parking is not a problem around here...... :-) We may have to go that way.

mary43

I agree with the petrol rationing up to a point but for us to visit family several hundreds of miles are needed........my Mum, my son and right on the south coast the other son, plus MIL up in Liverpool.
We sort of 'self ration' locally............walk to supermarket in town, but goods and get home delivery. I have a bus pass so can travel free anyway but the trouble with that is carrying what I buy.............our planned visit to Focus will have to be done by car (40 mile round trip). It's on a bus route but I wouldn't be able to carry the paint and nor would OH at the minute due to back problems.
Most times if I visit Mum I go on the bus as its a lot cheaper than OH paying petrol ! National Express give concessions so my return fare to Peterborough is £6.50 and now with the new bus pass I can get the connection from there to Mums for free. Means I have to stay overnight - only one Nat.Express bus per day from here but if my friends around I can stay with her. Otherwise its £25 for a b & b just at a time when we're having to cut back a little bit due to OH's workshop burning down. (Mind you with his back at the moment don't think he'd be doing much work anyway) If OH drove me to Mums I could be there and back in a day but to be honest the cost would be much the same.

Off topic a bit..........I watched newsnight last night and the food shortage world wide is looking very worrying. They then showed a chap who gets his food from the bins outside the supermarkets.........stuff they throw away that's still within it's selling date............its a crime they should be allowed to do that when the food is still edible. Many poor/homeless people would be glad of it.
They also had footage of a place where household food waste is collected separately and processed to create electricity ! But if we only cooked what we know we need (or bought just what we need in the first place) there would be no waste.

More personal note.................builders, like buses come either not at all or as in our case, two within a few days of each other..........least now I can get quotes off to insurers. Been waiting for lady from freecycle to collect remainder of dads music and she hasn't showed -bit of a disappointment there as three other folk wanted it. Oh well, least my specs seem to be ok today (or was it my eyes -or maybe the fact I'd got a bit weepy at the counsellors ?) and ex foster lad is calling this afternoon to do a bit on the garden. Also, my brother has decided that he wants the photos I've got of him..............he never wanted them when we sorted them out few years back. So I can get a fair bit of him 'off my back' as if were - another good thing.

mary43

Freecycle lady came this afternoon and took the rest of Dads music. If there's any she can't use she'll donate it to the local school so I'm happy with that and I know Dad would have been.
Ex foster lad didn't show to do the garden...........not sure what happened there but he can be a bit unreliable at times. So, I seem to have spent the afternoon 'waiting' when I could have been having a further clear out. Still, big bruvs photos (well some anyway) are sorted out to send to him out of my way so not totally waster day.
Was planning to do kneehole of computer desk clear out tomorrow but I need to take some stuff to the charity shop before it buries me ! There's not that much really but to or three carrier bags of it can feel like a mountain !
OH sorted out his videos this afternoon so now they're all in a cupboard leaving a revolving stand with a few cd's in it. It's black ash (£2 from street sale) so I feel a paint job coming on.........................lol
And when I get to past the computer desk in this little room there's a video stand -one of those narrow ones - that serves as a bookcase for diaries, birthday books notebooks etc. It's in dark wood and I think a coat of paint just might 'lift' it a bit...........and me:j

ceridwen

Hi Charis

Definitely one of the reasons why petrol rationing would actually be more equitable in many ways - as you said - you are "self-rationing" anyway because of the cost of it. Bearing in mind the laws of supply and demand - then if there was a ration applicable to all - then there would be, I envisage, less demand and from this it could be that there would be a lower price than there otherwise would be and help to ensure that lower-income people could get what they need (rather than being rationed out of it by the "rationing by price" mechanism). As things stand at present - the wealthy will use however much they please of petrol regardless - but with rationing per se they too would have to share in the scarcity of this resource (a much fairer system methinks).

Certainly people live in all sorts of locations and different personal set-ups in life - hence the sliding scale I propose. In many ways it would help bring about a more rational society I think. In the urban area in which I live, for instance, many people commute to here every workday for jobs - but equally many people from here commute out in the other direction each day. How rational is that? Some of these people might as well stop their cars halfway and swop and drive back to "home area" again - as they will be doing very similar jobs for very similar payrates - huh?! Maybe it would be a useful idea if the Government backed the setting-up of a job swap website - whereby people with pretty easily replaceable jobs (ie a pretty high proportion of us) could log on and look for a person in an equivalent job in their home area wanting a "job swap". A win/win situation - they would both gain in saving on commuting time and cost. Employers would possibly need a bit of persuasion - but by and large one shop assistant or low-level office worker or whatever and another one could be swopped without much odds to that employer. Swings and roundabouts - some employers would be "job-swopped" into a worse worker than the one they had and others would find they had been "job-swopped" into a better worker than they had - so it would even out overall.
It would have to be an entirely voluntary basis for employees - as some people do have specialist skills or get a noticeably "better deal" than others in equivalent jobs elsewhere - so wouldnt want to swop jobs.

Well - people swop lives on those tv programmes - so why not? The tv programmes are set-up with direct opposite swop-ees - but where people swopped similar jobs they would probably be fairly similar people with fairly similar lifestyles by and large.

mary43

There must also be many people who's work can be done from home with all the technology we have to hand. I'm sure many already do but maybe there are some who have made friends through their work and enjoy the 'social' aspect of it. Swapping jobs would mean making new sets of friends.........not the end of the world obviously but might be a bit of an upheavel for some people.
It's one of those areas where you can never please all of the people all of the time, as they say

Rowan9

This discussion is timely for me as I started back at work again today after a long absence, so am clocking up the miles - probably 36 mile round trip. I'm sure I'll notice the increased cost of fuel! I think you raise good points though and would like to think that i limit my 'town' driving. i certainly never go for a run in the car anymore as a pleasure outing -hhhmmmm.....but then again I did go for a lovely pub lunch at the sea side a few weeks ago, so maybe i do go with a vision in mind rather than just a run about.

Simple life - aaahhh where have you gone as i go back to a mountain of paperwork and willing and unwilling students?

w
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Charis

Having said that they seem to have overcome the transport problem in Japan, what does Martin come up with today on his weekly mail? http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html# :eek:

I'm sure Sustrans must have a better solution.

ceridwen

www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=163801

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