Do You Really Need a Car Living in Sydney or Any Major City?

Unless a car is essential for your work, foregoing your four wheeler could provide a large boost to your household budget. Comparethemarket.com.au comparison website has displayed that the average CBD worker who drives to and from work spends up to $14,000 a year on their vehicle. Insurance, registration, servicing, roadside assistance, tolls, parking and annual cost of petrol all add up making a car one incredibly expensive asset to own. Comparethemarket’s money expert, Rod Attrill, states that the cost of owning a car can exceed half its actual value in just one year. Moneycrashers.com describes a car as the fastest depreciating purchase you can make! 

Money isn’t the only factor if you’re considering veering from the vehicle. Infrastructure Australia came out with an alarming report at the beginning of the week stating that without a large investment in new transport capacity there is going to be a further increase in car travel times where ‘in some cases, travel times could more than double between 2011 and 2031. Congestion has also been shown to be detrimental to Aussies mental health where sitting in traffic consistently results in a higher likelihood of suffering from anxiety and depression.

Finally, unless you’re packing Tesla technology cars are a major cause of global warming. Australia has one of the largest ecological footprints per capita in the world and if every country lived like us we would need three and a half earths to sustain our demand on nature. A major contributor to this is the way we travel. Collectively, Australian cars emit roughly the same per year as Queensland’s entire coal and gas fired electricity supply. Car journeys to work account for about 65% of travel and nearly 25% of commuters live within 10 kilometers of their place of work. Cutting out the car and replacing it with an eco friendly alternative could help the world immensely.  

Cars no doubt have their benefits but looking into the costly, congested, carbon filled future it could be time dog our Daihatsus, abandon our Astras, flog the Ford, toss our Toyotas and say Vamos to our Volkswagens!