The car

I don't want to turn my blipfoto account into dailyjohn, rather than dailykeith, but my son does seem to be doing all the 'big' things at the moment.

I'm sure regular visitors are tired of hearing of his graduation and birthday. He's now gone out and struck a deal on a car - a sleek new black Citroen C3. He took it out for a spin for the first time today - almost with disastrous consequences as he was cut up on the motorway.

I'm rather embarrassed to reveal that our family is now responsible for no fewer than four cars, especially as I have made my views about the four-wheel terrors pretty clear.

But it highlights the fact that unless something substantial is done to improve public transport, we (ie. the public) will go on buying the things.

I would seriously consider shedding my car, but I have no other way of getting to the station, 11 miles away, to get to work.

My wife needs her car to get to her job 35 miles away. And using the train at the times she travels would be prohibitively expensive.

My daughter needs her car to get to her job in a village served by an inadequate bus service.

And my son has had to buy a car because his new job is in a town not served at all by buses at the time he starts work.

I hear people ask, 'Why not lift-share?', as a way of reducing congestion if we really have to have four cars. Well, lift-sharing may be ok in some jobs with fixed start and finish times, but tonight, for example, I finished at 7pm when I should have gone home at 4.30pm.

Anyway, it seems clear to me that we need more trains, more railway lines, more buses, cheaper tickets, better co-ordination of transport services etc etc.

Will we get them? Not a chance. On green issues, the politicians are good at talking the talk, but hopeless at walking the walk - or should that be taking the train?