Could you live without your car?

You’d expect a website that raves about cars day-in day-out to answer the headline of this article with a short, sharp ‘no’.

However, this week marks World Car-free Day (Thurs 22nd Sept), the aim of which is to highlight how we’d all be better off if we depended on our cars less.

More exercise, less congestion and cleaner air are just some of the benefits of going car-free with research suggesting that non-driving commuters have less body fat than their motoring counterparts.

La vie sans les voitures

When Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo closed off 30 per cent of the French capital to vehicles in September 2015, there was a dramatic drop in air and noise pollution.

Nitrogen dioxide levels plummeted by 40 per cent in some parts of the French capital, while sound levels halved. The results were so positive that the mayor half-joked about organising car-free days every month.

That’s just one day though, how would people go about their daily business if they ditched their car permanently?

Location, vocation, transportation

Where you live would have a big say in how you’d cope. Those living in the city would obviously have no problem doing a weekly shop and built-up areas naturally offer job opportunities a-plenty. On the flip side, it could be argued that living in the city is more expensive.

Those in the suburbs would be able to stock up at a supermarket or at least some express outlet less than a mile away. However, getting to their place of work in the city would involve sitting on a bus for the best part of an hour, but it’s also an opportunity to get active by hopping on a bike.

Even the most frequent of bus services can be unpredictably flakey, and cycling is a great way of not only dictating the duration of your commute but getting some regular exercise too.

If the distance between your home and workplace is only a few miles, you could consider setting out earlier than usual and commuting on foot. Best make sure you’ve got facilities to get cleaned up if you’re planning on jogging in, though – no one likes a stinker.

It may sound drastic but if you can cut out the car altogether, then your bank balance would be better off, giving you extra to pay with by not forking out for fuel, insurance and road tax as well as other upkeep costs like MOT and repairs.

Does a life without your car sound miserable? It probably wouldn’t be. The BBC recently interviewed a batch of former motorists and they came across as liberated by not running a car.

One said that paying to run a car in the city is like paying for a second apartment, while another mentioned how “freeing it is to not have that big expensive machine hanging over your head, waiting to break down and bankrupt you”.

A former New York resident said that getting the bus freed up to time to nap, study, read or play games on the bus, even sometimes having the odd interesting conversation.

So, how would you feel about giving up the car?