Lazy Commuters

[Neil]

In case anyone doubts the depreciation thing, according to Parkers a 3yr old Ford Focus from a dealer would cost about £6,000. New price in 2008 - just under £14,000. That's £8,000 over three years, or over £2,500 a year. 10,000 miles worth of petrol at today's prices would be about £1,500.

If you think that rate of depreciation is fast, consider this - you drive a brand new car out of a dealership.

It's suddenly lost quite a bit of value, since your name (/ your lease companies name) has gone on the log book, and it's now (effectively) 2nd hand.

But agreed on the 3 year thing - that's normally how it's presented: % of original value after 3 years. I seem to recall mid 50s (percentage wise) was reasonable for many cars, in terms of depreciation.

 

[The Ken]

I doubt the "average" driver buys a new car, I certainly don't and it goes to a non dealership garage for servicing too. I'm on a decent slightly above average salary with 3 kids - I don't ever see how I could afford to buy a car costing more than 10k, and it was my single biggest outlay after food before it was paid off. (not including bikes of course )

 

[The Ken]

oh and news items like this aren't sensational but it does stick at the back of your mind having grown up with images of Vicky Hamilton and all the others over the years...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-13710974

 

[drcarlos]

Guess I can feel smug in the fact on the 3 days I travel to London I ride to the station. As I am based from home my company pays the expenses so I never have to count the cost of a travelcard. However if I had to do it everyday out of my own pocket I would not be so amused I think. At £500 a month it's over double what I used to pay on fuel for my only slightly shorter suburban commute, even when you add in tax, insurance and wear it's still very bad VFM.
The tube so far has been pretty much bang on (although I fail to see why when Tottenham court road is closed they cannot go through at full speed) time wise. However it's is usually busy and over crowded and unpleasant. The train has been far less reliable having had major delays 3 times already this year and minor delays are all too common. I am also on one of the most overcrowded lines of all and the retarded train company still only put on a 5 coach train that is always full when it should be 8 or more coaches.
On the plus side tomorrow is work from home day and they owe me an hour and a half so i'm finishing early.
Off to do my commute now.

Carl.

 

[drcarlos]

That will teach me to be so smug. Another delayed train, second in a week :roll:

Carl

 

[1duck]

Having had the luxury of being ferried to school pretty much every day of my school life...i can say that its mainly parents fears of predators or it certainly was in my mothers case, i wanted to go to school alone when i was younger.

Then by the time i got to high school i had changed school and it was 12.5 miles away, combined with two siblings at the same school its suddenly cheaper in petrol than busfares...That started as a first couple of weeks of term then just became habit i suppose, although i would get public transport home.

I think if i had been left on public transport I would have definitely truanted, but as it was I had a 100% attendance rate. I had about 2 days off sick in 18 years of education, for some reason i would get a holiday period and suddenly be struck down by massive bouts of illness....god i hated school (which is why i know i personally would have truanted)

Anyway in summary...parents are often over protective, transporting children to school also stops them skipping school.

 

[Supratada]

Not sure whether stats show there's some huge increase in the numbers of weirdos

There were some stats somewhere showing essentially no increase in child abductions (for whatever reason) in the last 50 years. It's a minuscule risk anyway, down there with being struck by lightning.

Agreed - you talk - or here people talking, and you'd think there was a monster around every corner, but I very much suspect it's a case of society being much more aware, or of it being sensationalised more in the press / media.

I'd certainly agree with that. Years ago, if a child was missing, it would rarely make the national news but if it did you would see it once or twice in the evening at 6 or 9 o Clock.
Now there is 24hr coverage with news presenters and "experts" all struggling to fill the airwaves with words, and that's the same whether it's a paedo case, a train strike or snow.
Bombarded with that amount of info, its no wonder that people start to panic about every little thing, when there are reporters talking in urgent voices about what could happen next, which hypothetical disaster could jump out your telly and kill YOU , in your own home, right now.

Where does that leave parents? What if one decides it IS all nonsense and they make their kids walk to school? If something does happen, they'll never forgive themselves so its all back in the car again.

When I was at Primary School sometimes we'd be warned about reports of a "prowler" nearby and told to be careful, but we still had to walk home unattended. If a head teacher did that today, the kids would be hysterical with fear and the parents would form a rolling wagon train / lynch mob.

 

[Supratada]

Double Post.
Thinking back I can recall two incidents of genuine child snatch-death by strangers. Jamie Bulger and Sara Payne, even though Bulger was taken by two kids, the result was stil lthe same.
Now Maddie McCann, are we really supposed to believe that if you leave a child alone in a room, however irresponsible that may be, one of these winged paedophiles will swoop down and grab her away the moment you turn your back? I think that adequately shows my feelings on what happned to Maddie.

A few years back, when I was designing some nurseries for a college, because we had old sash windows in one block where there was a playroom, the nursery staff wanted clear perspex sheets over the windows, with air holes so that they could have them open in summer but no-one could reach in and snatch a child.
In a campus? A fair distance from a public road? You really think that people are going to lean in the window and spirit these kids away?

Of course they got their screens, well, better to be safe than sorry, I mean its not like any staff inside the nursery would be dodgy is it?

 

[Neil]

Now there is 24hr coverage with news presenters and "experts" all struggling to fill the airwaves with words, and that's the same whether it's a paedo case, a train strike or snow.
Bombarded with that amount of info, its no wonder that people start to panic about every little thing, when there are reporters talking in urgent voices about what could happen next, which hypothetical disaster could jump out your telly and kill YOU , in your own home, right now.

Where does that leave parents? What if one decides it IS all nonsense and they make their kids walk to school? If something does happen, they'll never forgive themselves so its all back in the car again.

I've no truck with parents who care, who decide they want to take their kids to school - even if their fears aren't really grounded in anything over than media hype. I just don't believe that in all cases, it needs a car for the journey - what's wrong with walking?

Sure, if the distances or time involved is too much, the weather inclement, or there's more than one school involved, or it's on the way to work or something - then fair enough. But in many cases I see, it's just pure laziness or lack of thought. And given the standard or driving and parking around schools that I see, practically daily - and this is a salient point - the parents and / or their kids are probably at more risk of the traffic and drivers around the school, than any other factors.

What many parents either miss, or couldn't care less about, is that it's habit forming for their kids, too - their behaviour becomes the landscape for their kids as they group up. So if the parents are lazy and complacent about jumping in the car, then their kids will likely grow up the same - and however you cut it, for a variety of factors in society, that ain't a good thing.

When I was at Primary School sometimes we'd be warned about reports of a "prowler" nearby and told to be careful, but we still had to walk home unattended. If a head teacher did that today, the kids would be hysterical with fear and the parents would form a rolling wagon train / lynch mob.

For me, the true sign that society had lost the plot, was the incident of the "anti-paedo-mob" hounding and victimising a paediatrician. And that was over a decade ago.

Now Maddie McCann, are we really supposed to believe that if you leave a child alone in a room, however irresponsible that may be, one of these winged paedophiles will swoop down and grab her away the moment you turn your back? I think that adequately shows my feelings on what happned to Maddie.

I get your point, and I do wonder whether the public will ever truly get to know the truth of all that.

All the same, I think it's fair to say that if they hadn't been left alone, that Maddie wouldn't have disappeared - however that happened...

IMO, leaving such young kids alone, in a foreign country, so that you could (largely) get on with your social life, unencumbered, was negligence - my parents would have never done that, nor would I with my kids, nor would people I know. I'd either want my kids to be a part of whatever we were doing, or ensure they were with a trusted, responsible adult, or accept that sometimes you can't just behave as if you haven't got kids at times, in order to socialise with friends.

A few years back, when I was designing some nurseries for a college, because we had old sash windows in one block where there was a playroom, the nursery staff wanted clear perspex sheets over the windows, with air holes so that they could have them open in summer but no-one could reach in and snatch a child.
In a campus? A fair distance from a public road? You really think that people are going to lean in the window and spirit these kids away?

Of course they got their screens, well, better to be safe than sorry, I mean its not like any staff inside the nursery would be dodgy is it?

Agreed - sometimes all the fear is misplaced and overhyped just because of how the story is told.

Here's the thing, though - I suspect if the true risk to kids going to school, was evenly communicated to all parents, in terms of what's most likely to cause their kids harm whilst they get to school, it still wouldn't be enough to get many out of their cars, and on two feet.

 

[MikeD]

I suspect if the true risk to kids going to school, was evenly communicated to all parents, in terms of what's most likely to cause their kids harm whilst they get to school, it still wouldn't be enough to get many out of their cars, and on two feet.

Spot on. The ones you're trying to persuade wouldn't believe it...

Had a good train delay yesterday, a journey that usually takes less than two hours took over six.