Poirot I am glad you are healthy enough for that lifestyle. I loved it 20 years ago, when I could carry a couple of jerry cans of fuel 500 meters down to the river pump, & bring the empty ones back up. Today I can't walk even half way to the damn thing. Getting into the ute to drive down can be hard some days.

I don't think you'd survive around here I'm afraid with out driving. We do have a post office convenience store with a couple of fuel pumps, & a produce store, about 4Km away, but you would starve if you could only shop there.

The nearest shopping is about 25Km. away, & there is no public transport, other than the school bus, which can not carry any other than school kids. Although it is theoretically possible to do your shopping in one of the choice of 3 towns, by horse & sulky, I doubt you would survive long with todays traffic.

I still really enjoy my cars. I have 3 sports cars, unfortunately none quite as old as me, but one is getting on that way, & the other 2 are not babies. Maintaining them is my last hobby, & it will become a wrench when I can no longer do it myself.

I can't imagine how bad life would/will be when I can no longer drive.

As an ex horseman, I should like the idea of a return to the days of horse & cart, but having lived as a kid with milking the house cow, & killing our own meat, & sharing it, as there were no freezers, I really don't want to go back there.

So sorry, I'll ban those bl00dy bikes, not the cars.

Hasbeen,

I appreciate your situation...and I can also appreciate your love of your cars.

I realise that this is time in which I exist - in a developed society that is based around the automobile. I do think that even small towns would have been able to cater for communities in the old days because much of the produce would have been grown and produced locally. I can even remember when as a child that most suburbs in cities had local shopping precincts where most things could be bought by walking to the shops. Our communities are now much more centralised and require a car to get you to them. We have constructed our shopping and community centres around the framework of modern transport.

Habeen,

Just wanted to add, as I alluded to, that because "the car" has become so ubiquitous, it's use has framed the physical construction of modern society. We now have a society where most humans don't move through space in a physical manner, where we sit and are transported - with all the accompanying health problems.

We don't have to "go back" to the horse and buggy. The one area where man consistently falls down is his inability to moderate the best aspects of human ingenuity. His failure to moderate the use of the car will of course be tempered in the future by the availability and price of fuel.

I am now Elderly (76) need heart transplant and live in an outer suburb of melbourne with no rail link. Have never wanted to drive a car. I Used to easily ride a bike and want a really good electric bike. Known as a “Pedelec” A 1990 Japanese invention that take 50% less effort to ride. The 250 watt “pedelec” is perhaps the safest type of mass produced electric bicycle; available in Europe the US and Japan, but banned from sale in Australia and Victoria ( thanks to VicRoads and other state road agencies negligence) since 2001. It offers a simple, healthy alternative to much motor vehicle travel in urban areas. New EU Pedelec safety regulations will apply in Australia in 2012 according to the Commonwealths Department of transport and Infrastructure, and most likely by a new government and enthusiastic bike rider for PM .

Australia should adopt Pedelec EU standards for 4 reasons. 
1: In 2010 pedelecs were considered safe and used in countries with overall low road death rates per 100,000 population:Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany. In law they are bicycles,compulsory costs. 
2. Pedelecs enlarge train and bus access and make cross suburban travel across 
radiating rail lines easier, Pedelec access is three times more efficient than a bicycle. 
3. Millions of the elderly find walking and driving too stressful. Japan conducted research,which found thatelderly cyclists needed bicycles with auxiliary motors that took 50% less effort to ride. 
4. Pedelecs are similar to bicycles, with similar low weight, wheels and frames; but safer with automatic motor start and cut out at 24 km/hr.


The finding that most bike friendly cities are safer has been reinforced by the recent experience of US cities such as Cambridge, Portland, and New York. These cities have garnered much press for their success in dramatically increasing bike use and an equally dramatic decrease total traffic fatality rates..

Poirot,

spot on! Humans just incapable of moderation--but that's the capitalist way rather than human nature. Globally, out economies are just so tied to the motor car that if there was a sudden take up of bikes as opposed to cars, on the order of say 20%, it would probably lead to mass unemployment and recession. Car sales are always one of the big indicators of economic prosperity.

Pest,

you're an inspiration and I've no doubt your vision will be realised when needs must. In the meantime I hope you continue to be a "Pest" to urban planners.

*Humans just incapable of moderation--but that's the capitalist way rather than human nature*

Do not kid yourself there, Squeers. People do things, because they
can. If the system enables them to, some do. I remember reading
of a Morroccan Sheik who had 800 women in his harem. I doubt if
the fellow had ever heard of capitalism.

Capitalism is simply the whipping boy that you use, to excuse
human nature.