Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:17:02 on Wed,
11 Aug 2004, Brimstone remarked:
So you pay out the costs of owning a car so that you can go a buy a
new TV and carry it home yourself every few years? An interesting
slant on cost/benefit analysis.

Only on Usenet do you find propositions like this taken to such
ridiculous extremes.

Oh I dunno, I've heard people pick up on a minor point or put a different
slant on a comment in lots of other places quite apart from Usenet. A little
of it intended seriously, much of it not.


What's actually happening is that over the period of ownership of the
car, people find *enough* times they need to transport something
large,
or go somewhere inconvenient for public transport, or travel at hours
that public transport doesn't work, or on routes that PT fail to
support.

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 at 09:44:52, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
23:37:39 on Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Gawnsoft
move.this.antispam.net remarked:
Most people going to dixons to buy a new TV aren't going to want to
take it home on the bus.

True. Luckily many such shops have delivery vans. It's certainly how
I get lots of my purchases to my home from the shops.

So instead of getting the whatever that you carefully picked out in
the shop, at home and useful that afternoon; you get to take a day off
work, and wait in all of next Thursday, in the hope that the one they
deliver from the warehouse doesn't have a big scratch on the side.

So if you'd rather not wait in for the whatever, assuming (big
assumption) that they have one in stock other than the display model,
which they probably won't have, but *if* they do, what's wrong with
hiring a van for the afternoon?

Last time I bought a telly, I brought it home in a taxi. Time before,
we managed with the car, even though the street that particular shop was
in was not only no parking, it was pedestrianised!
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday
snaps!

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 at 11:31:59, Roland Perry
wrote:

What's actually happening is that over the period of ownership of the
car, people find *enough* times they need to transport something large,
or go somewhere inconvenient for public transport, or travel at hours
that public transport doesn't work, or on routes that PT fail to support.

Oh, I dunno - our car spends most of its life in the garage; we really
only keep it because we tend to take motoring holidays. And it gets
used on Sundays and one Wednesday a month. Other than that, in a normal
month, it lives in the garage.
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday
snaps!

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 at 23:35:55, Gawnsoft
wrote:

Have you figures to back this up? In my experience, taxi's are often
used for multiple occupancy, whereas most car journeys are
single-occupant.

Taxi's what? Which taxi, and what belongs to it? I'm afraid your post
makes no sense, as written.
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday
snaps!

In message , at 12:38:45 on Wed,
11 Aug 2004, Annabel Smyth remarked:
What's actually happening is that over the period of ownership of the
car, people find *enough* times they need to transport something large,
or go somewhere inconvenient for public transport, or travel at hours
that public transport doesn't work, or on routes that PT fail to support.

Oh, I dunno - our car spends most of its life in the garage; we really
only keep it because we tend to take motoring holidays. And it gets
used on Sundays and one Wednesday a month. Other than that, in a normal
month, it lives in the garage.

Well, that's obviously *enough* usage for you, then. Odd how it varies
from person to person. PT's big drawback is assuming one size fits all.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:37:36 on Wed,
11 Aug 2004, Annabel Smyth remarked:
So if you'd rather not wait in for the whatever, assuming (big
assumption) that they have one in stock other than the display model,
which they probably won't have, but *if* they do, what's wrong with
hiring a van for the afternoon?

Because the van hire company is the other side of town, and they might
not have a suitable vehicle at short notice. And you have the problem of
storing the items at the shop while you go and fetch the van. And then
taking the van back. All extremely tedious.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 at 13:02:00, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
12:37:36 on Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Annabel Smyth
mon.co.uk remarked:
So if you'd rather not wait in for the whatever, assuming (big
assumption) that they have one in stock other than the display model,
which they probably won't have, but *if* they do, what's wrong with
hiring a van for the afternoon?

Because the van hire company is the other side of town, and they might
not have a suitable vehicle at short notice. And you have the problem of
storing the items at the shop while you go and fetch the van. And then
taking the van back. All extremely tedious.

Isn't it Ikea which hires out its own fleet of vans?
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday
snaps!

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:44:52 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

So instead of getting the whatever that you carefully picked out in
the shop, at home and useful that afternoon; you get to take a day off
work, and wait in all of next Thursday, in the hope that the one they
deliver from the warehouse doesn't have a big scratch on the side.

Indeed. While I am very much part of the target demographic for
things like supermarket delivery, I just can't guarantee to be in at
any given point to receive delivery of an item, and I wouldn't want
such things delivering to work.

Indeed, I'd rather lug a big box on the bus (and I've done it before),
or worst case in a taxi, than try to arrange a delivery, though
fortunately these days I have and use a car for such things.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To e-mail use neil at the above domain

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:17:02 +0000 (UTC), "Brimstone"
wrote:

So you pay out the costs of owning a car so that you can go a buy a new TV
and carry it home yourself every few years? An interesting slant on
cost/benefit analysis.

Not everything in this world is down to cost. Seen objectively, the
ownership of a car makes no financial sense to me whatsoever, given
that it gets used only a couple of times a week (I commute by bike).
However, it was a lifestyle decision, and one I do not regret at all.

Indeed, I'd go so far to say that the world is a far worse place for
the obsession with cost that seems so prevolent at the moment.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To e-mail use neil at the above domain

Neil Williams wrote:

Indeed, I'd go so far to say that the world is a far worse place for
the obsession with cost that seems so prevolent at the moment.


Very true. The concept of "value for money" seems to have got lost.