Machka 

What do you consider yourself to be ...

• Car free
• Car light
• Car light during the week and car heavy on weekends
• Occasional car use
• Another member of my family has a car and I ride in it as often as I can!
• Formerly car free
• Considering a car free lifestyle
• Considering getting rid of one of my cars
• I'm down to one car now!
• I'm thinking of adding a second or third car to my fleet
• I don't own a car, but will rent them and use taxis quite frequently
• I use a car in my everyday life but I like to travel car free (i.e. trains, bicycle tours)
• As car free as I can possibly be acknowledging that my food is delivered to the local grocery store by means of a motor vehicle

Or?
Or?
Or?


If you're conversing in this forum ... what kind of label or definition do you use to describe yourself?

wolfchild

I am car light...which means that I don't drive everyday and I use my bike regularly for commuting to work, shopping and various errands.

350htrr

I am "trying" to be car light. Not working out too well so far... The closest town is 100Km one way, the next closest is 110Km and the next is 230Km and the next closest is 280Km in all 4 directions... Anything I want to do is basically 10Km+ in this town so, Yea, the best thing I can/did do, is get a Prius C (62MPG)... I consider not driving my truck (15MPG) to be car light... I have, managed over 2,000Km+ on my bike this last year, and 2,400+ the year before.

Jean3n16

Im not sure what we are? @HotWheels86 rides/walks to and from work every day. I will drive to the store and my parents house or errands but otherwise we dont go or we walk/ride.

Rollfast

I am Rollfast.

gregf83 

I'm car free during the week, commuting by bike to work 60km round trip. On the weekends I'll often ride with a group but any errands or shopping I use the car. I've got a couple of older sports cars, 16 and 27 yrs old, which I'll likely keep. I love driving but put very few miles on my vehicles.

DrIsotope

Averaging for 2016:

Car: 300 miles/month
Bike: 1,000 miles month

As "car light" as I reckon I can be. Still have to buy groceries, materials for work, supplies, etc. I figure it's my way of evening out for my wife, who has to commute 28 miles each way 5 days a week. She drives in a week what I drive in a month, and due to her work hours, rides as much in a month as I do in a week.

B. Carfree

Well, I'm not car free (my screen name is aspirational and a bit of poking fun at myself).

However, I'm not sure what my proper label is. I own a motor vehicle that I don't keep operational. I own it solely so that I can have an insurance policy to turn on when I rent a car to drive (I actually get paid by my insurance company to keep it). I do rent a car about once every other year or so, but it can happen more frequently. When I visit my elderly parents and in-laws, I end up driving them around in their cars. I also get called on to drive neighbors to the airport (in their cars) or to haul things in their trucks/trailers.

Odder still, I occasionally take a trucking gig and roll around with 40 tons of steel and payload.

If pressed, I guess I'd have to go with car-light. I make use of cars when they suit my needs, they just don't do that very often and almost never are used just to move myself and other people.

Jim from Boston

I just finished posting about the app I use on the local bus, subway, commuter rail, and ferry boat transit system here in Boston, the MBTA.
For my family and me, the above definitions apply. In my everyday life, living in downtown Boston with an outbound commute, It’s actually preferable to live car free / lite in this crowded city. However, I travel distances by car, in particular since I don’t fly. Besides the ever-increasing hassle of air travel, I prefer the control allowed by the car: my own schedule, virtually unlimited baggage, the contemplative drive (the family flies, and I drive alone..."The family that travels together, unravels together.").

Right now I’m on a 10-day business/pleasure trip, from Boston to Baltimore, to Philadelphia, to a loop around Michigan, and back to Boston. I’ve brought two bikes (for rain and shine), and I’ve scheduled visits with a couple old friends, and a couple of Bikeforum members. I’ve described this trip as one, if not the only nearly unencumbered vacations I have taken, when so much of my time and destinations is at my own determination, making for a truly relaxing vacation.

BTW, I live in a transportation hub in Boston, Kenmore Square, and finding a taxi, at any time used to be easy. Recently I just couldn’t find one in an interminably long 10 minutes, and I realize what Uber has done to that industry.

Finally, not to seem a curmudgeon, but when the children were younger, we did many long-distance drives together, but now when they fly and I drive, everybody is happy.

ThermionicScott 

I'm somewhere on the car-light "spectrum".

My wife and I both own cars, and I have a couple of aircooled VWs in storage that get very few miles each year. Since about 2010/2011, I've endeavored to replace car commutes and other small trips with biking when possible, and that has brought my yearly driving mileage from 12,000+ to under 5,000. This year, the wife and I moved to another house (within the same city), which, despite hiring movers to take care of all the big and medium stuff, still resulted in many car trips to get the last of it over to the new place. An energy-demanding task that we hope not to repeat for many more years. At least now we're settled, and my new commute is a few miles shorter, so hopefully I will be able to use the car much less going forward. In fact, we've even discussed going down to one main car when one of ours bites the dust.

Seattle Forrest

I'm a good looking guy.

I-Like-To-Bike

Join the Peace Corps.

mconlonx

LCF-curious.

cooker

Car-light. I own two cars but they are shared across three households.

I bike or bus commute to work (75/25 split).

My adult son uses one car during the week for his construction tools and my adult daughter uses that one on the weekend as her job has very irregular hours (she walks on weekdays). My wife has the other car at home but I use it with her if we go out together on the weekend.

If I go out alone on the weekend I walk to local shops, the bank, barber etc. or to the subway if I want to go farther, but for a few places that aren't handy to get to by transit, like Home Depot, I will drive.

I usually don't use my bike for errands on the weekend, as the rides would be too short - I want the exercise of walking 1-2 km each way to wherever I am going - but I do use it some weekends for longer pleasure rides.

Walter S

Car free since 2011. The doctor ordered me not to drive for six months. I realized only by parking the car that I didn't need it and actually prefer not driving.

cooker

Any prospects for change?

wolfchild

Move to Shangri-La, not a single car over there.

Walter S

I'm the only car free person I know. The world would be lonely without car culture. I don't like cars but not enough to give up family and friends

Machka 

Personally ...

I spent much of my life car light ... so much so I finally figured I'd just go car free.

I was car free for about 6-ish years ... so I've got some experience in that regard.

And then circumstances changed, and I used a car a lot for about 4-ish years.

Since then, I've been back to car light.

During the week I take the bus and walk a lot ... and cycle when I can. Weekends I might use the van, as a passenger ... but not always. It depends what we're doing. However, whether we use the van or not, weekends usually include a lot of cycling. I am, first and foremost ... a cyclist!

ZMC888

Why are you? (even here)

Roody

https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...oductions.html

badger1

Car light here -- at least, I think so.

Two-person family; one still working (me), one retired (Ms. B). We do own and use one car, for what I consider very good reasons, but try to use it sparingly.

I am a cyclist, Ms. B. is not. Since 2002 I have not driven to work. I either ride my bike (preferred and whenever possible), walk or use public transit. My reasons for doing so, aside from simply loving to ride bikes, mainly involve environmental concerns (in the sense both of a love of the natural world and of conservation) and a desire to do what I can to minimize urban sprawl/traffic congestion and so on.

For the same sorts of reasons I tend to cycle/walk/use public transit when moving around the city for various reasons on my own. When we have places to go/things to do together, we use the car.

Awl

Starting to be car-light because every time I drive any more I hate it. Bike can't carry as much yet though so there's that.

wphamilton

I drive only on occasional weekends, typically only a few miles for groceries when I do, but I have a car mainly for my wife's medical appointments. So I guess that makes me car-light, but not my wife?

We were car-free for several years, and I owned a car for a couple of years that we never drove for mechanical issues, so I have some experience across the spectrum.

Roody

I know a couple carefree people IRL, but not many. I come here as an opportunity for fellowship and support from other carfree/carlight people.

I have to admit that I don't feel comfortable with even asking people on the forum what their carfree status is. To me, it makes no difference. I assume that everybody who posts here has some kind of interest in being carfree or less car-dependent. Everybody here is basically symapthetic about the idea, regardless of their carfree status at this point in time.