If I had an office, it would be the family car. For someone like myself who thinks long and hard about their environmental responsibilities, it’s a painful thing to admit, but the car is effectively my second home.
A little while ago my wife and I were having words about housework and how I had, possibly, failed to do quite as much as I should have done. I explained to her that I spent about an hour a day in the car.
As Mrs Adams was the one querying why the housework hadn’t been done, she then did something very odd and came to my defence. She did the mathematics and pointed out that I actually spend about two hours a day behind the wheel of a car.
That, my friends, is just the days when I undertake the school and nursery runs. If there is an after-school club such as karate or gymnastics, it can be considerably longer.
It’s no secret, I quite like my motoring. I blog and vlog about cars and motoring often enough.
The constant whirlwind of short, stop-start journeys, however, can be a little draining. During these winter months, when I often find myself pulling into poorly-lit car parks and dealing with other people’s bad driving, well, that’s not much fun.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. For whatever reason, I often see the worst driving on the school run. It baffles me why people drive so badly around schools.
Anyway, my life is a whirlwind of short journeys. It takes up a huge amount of my time.
Sometimes I find it very draining. That said, it’s a great way to dodge doing housework.
Is your life a whirlwind of short car journeys? Does this describe your life? Have you managed to eliminate short car journeys from your life? If so, how, I’d love to know your secret.
14 thoughts on “Short car journeys are the bane of my life”
I rarely have access to the car and so don’t do short car journeys by default. We walk to school and the supermarket, we tram to dance classes, cinema, music sessions, fireworks etc and I cycle or tram to work.It’s different for me because I live in a small city with good transport links but I do still see so many car journeys that are unnecessary. Start by thinking of just one that you might be able to change to a different form of transport and go from there. But remember, this isn’t a time saver. Other forms are often as long, the difference is that they have considerably less stress (I hate other drivers these days) better exercise and better environmentally.
Don’t stress about the housework either, it’s never as important as you think.
Oh the housework ship has sailed! My wife has accepted only minimal amounts will get done until Izzy starts school in September.
As for public transport…..we live in an area served by Southern Rail. You may have heard of the ongoing issues. The services simply are not reliable enopugh. I’d love to walk everywhere but school is several miles away.
All the time! It we’re in the country on 60mph country roads. And although some do walk on them (beggars belief!) I don’t fancy taking the risk, so I never walk further than the end of the drive to put the bin out. It’s not so bad, if you have a comfy car and the right music!
Our area is so hilly and in places the pavements incredibly narrow and the roads are insanely congested. We have scooted some of the way in the past but walking every day just won’t happen.
I hear you! I can’t mentally prepare myself for the mundane short trips. They annoy me! If it’s a decent drive, 30 minutes plus then I’m fine, other than like you mention, other people’s driving. But yes the short school trips in particular are a nightmare. Possibly because access to our house with a car is round the back and can be a ball ache, I’m and out all day! ?
Short-hop trips do my head in David. I don’t think it helps that the roads around here are so heavily congested (….fringes of London, they really are insanely bad). If you have to park your car round the back of your house that must be an additional hassle you could live without.
My life is full on medium length car journeys… It takes me over an hour and half to get to work every morning because of traffic, then after work I have to pick up my wife and daughter so that I can take my wife to work. Then I get to drive home and spend an hour or two with my daughter, plus showering and other necessities…
Then, I have to drive back again to pick nylon wife up from work (at the same city I work at). It’s pretty horrendous really. I just calculated it whilst writing this, and I spend about 4 hours a day in the car during the week. Oh, and my wife works weekends too… Every weekend. So no late start either… Haha.
It really does add up doesn’t iot? Four hours a day. Wow, thought I had it bad.
i get the frustrations of short trips in the car.
I actually bought myself a motorbike purely for the short journey
errands. Of course if the trip includes kids this is not possible, but anything else
i can do just with bike .. i do it.
AND it is fun! (well for now until the novelty wears off)
Enjoy using your motorbike. Interestingly my wife said she never wanted me to get one. Then corrected herself and said “I can’t speak, I go horse riding.” Who knows, maybe in time I will get a steel horse of my own.
A moped or motorbike as mentioned by Kevin is a good idea but in the winter months the drag of putting all the gear on is a hassle (well it was for me). For your conscious on saving the environment maybe get a hybrid vehicle… Just brought one and love it for now
You know what, I’d love a hybrid. We’re going to be replacing our car this year so I may look into it.
We have been thinking about get a motorbike or moped for short journeys, as it is such a pain otherwise. As the other guy are saying, a bike is a cool and useful idea, in any form.
As it happens Barry, I have started using a bike a lot more too. We’ve moved house since I wrote that post and it has made life much easier for me to cycle.