Cars in cambridge

[jack]

Based sort of on real events.

Me: You know, I really should get a car. It'd be so useful. It'd be quicker to get to places, I can give people lifts, go out and not drink, join rush hour properly,...
Naath: [interrupts] Where are the others? We've been waiting outside twenty minutes.
Me: Uh?
Naath: Oh sorry, what were you saying?
Me: Twenty minutes? Um, nevermind.

(OK, there would be many good things. Shopping. Lifts. Keeping dry. Long journeys. But is a lot of faff for something I'd use at most once a week and probably less.)

However, today, I definitely did meet my match in Douglas's low, two seater, open top, sportything[1]. We left games evening together and I kept up all the way onto arbury road[2], when he overtook and roared away on the long straight. (Apologies if I got in your way on the narrow bit.)

[1] It is very comfortable.

[2] Without even any dodgy road-cyclepath-road switching. Note for other cyclists: do not *literally* swap your road hat for a cycle path hat or vice versa to avoid traffic lights, even if you consider it a wise thing to do notionally. This tends to impair your ability to have children because, viz, respectively, (a) you look really stupid and (b) you will knee yourself in Mr and Mr gangly-googly falling off your bike.

Comments

[satanicsocks.livejournal.com]

no, exactly. I've been the "friend with a car" to a lot of people over the last few years, it does get a bit tiresome, but useful.

Renting a van is great for shifting lots of stuff at once, but (e.g.) being able to go back easily over the next week and collect random bits and tidy up makes the process a lot less stressful; generally a car saves one time, but given Cambridge's traffic, this isn't always the case ;)

as for the £n00/month, I pay.. hmm.. £100 every 6 months for tax, £180 a year for insurance, and probably about £20 a month on petrol (but that's obviously proportional to use). Given that I already own the car, I'm spending about £50 a month on it, which is just about ok.

[satanicsocks.livejournal.com]

oh and £60 a year MOT - it's a good runner :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Thank you. Actually, I've never really worked out what it would cost, because this year it's too much hassle to be worth getting it whatever it comes to. And I wasn't sure if they'd say "24 year old male, never had is own car (though held license for 6 years), insurance? You'll be lucky!"

Also, I'm not sure what I want. If I'm getting a car *anyway* I want something sleek, which is obviously more expensive. But insurance companies websites are more geared to you saying "I have this car. How much?" not "I want to pay £n0, what car could I get?" so I have to go and speak to someone, which is harder work :)

[satanicsocks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it shouldn't be *that* hard to refactor a standard insurance quote website to order by price and show cars, rather than order by cars, but you often have to put in a registration number. If you buy a brand new car then you may be able to get a year's free insurance, which will tip you on to the cheaper 25+ tariff *and* give you a year's NCB -- I've not had an accident in the 7 years since I started driving (touch wood) so that's why my insurance is among the cheapest I know of. I mean, you'll definitely *get* insurance -- my 22 year old brother with three accidents (at least!) to his name got insurance! -- but it did cost about £800-£1000 a year I think.