Transport

Let’s talk about transport. How do you get around most the time? Drive? Walk? Or perhaps you fly. Transport is vital in today’s society it has allowed the whole world to become available for a

price of course. In a few days ago l flew back from Sydney to London, it is a huge journey and takes a whole 24hr with at least one stop over. These are the kinds of journeys which would have been a major life decision 100 years ago and 100 years before that they would have seemed completely insane have become common in today’s world. In fact at the time you are reading this there are approximately 5000 commercial planes in the air in USA air space alone.

It’s not just planes that are connecting the world, cars, trucks and motorbikes are like the red blood cells of the planet, just as blood carries oxygen round the body these vehicles carry resources such as food raw materials and people round every country.  Australia for example has 723 vehicles per 1000 people so that’s a total of 1672290 in Australia alone, this is ^th in a list which sees San Marino at number 1 with 1263 vehicles per 1000 people (although they do only have a population of 31448).

only the 7

I do own a car and take it to university with me when I’m in the UK. Sometimes you just need a car to provide you with personal transport to move large items around or if you are in a hurry to get somewhere. There are point however when you can get away without using a car and use a different method to get from a to b, that’s the main point I want to get across. With ever journey you should always be thinking about your journeys and then chose the most suitable method and remember it doesn’t always have to be your own personal car.   

       

All the points I’m about to make do depend heavily on where you live, if you live in a town or city you’ll be able to put them into practise without a problem. While if you live in the middle of nowhere you’ll struggle to move away from your dependency on your personal vehicles.

The first thing you should always think about is do you really need to drive there, for instance you could walk there or perhaps cycle. On average Australians drive 15,530km a year while Americans drive 26634.64km (16,550miles), with each American drives 21.88708km (13.6miles) on their daily commutes on average. These are huge distance and result in people spending days and weeks in their cars each year and this isn’t overly healthy for them or the planet. It’s possible to cycle 20km an hour without much stress or effort on your body. If everyone was to start cycling to work a couple of times a week it would make a huge difference to both their health and the total amount of emissions which are produced each year, it would also save them money as fuel prices rise ever higher.

If you do have to drive though there are still steps you can take to make each journey more environmentally friendly. It seems simple but very few people put it into practice, pay attention next time you are driving and count how many cars you see with more than one person in. For most journeys for instance the commute to work it’s a solitary affair but this is what needs to be changed, try to get a few people together and carpool. This will make a difference to both the number of cars on the road and the emissions, even if you do have to take a slightly longer route, your journey as a group would still be environmentally friendly as there are fewer cars. It will also workout cheaper as you can split the fuel cost and if there are 4 of you in the car that saves you a large amount each year.

The second point I’d like to bring up is don’t take the easy option sometimes, walking isn’t that hard and yet still people tend to drive to places that are only a 10 minute walk away. It amazed me every time it rained when I was in school how many people would get dropped off in a car just so they didn’t have to walk. I was always sent out with a coat or an umbrella and got there just fine; you don’t even need these if you want to rock the drowned rat look. What people tend to forget I think is rain isn’t going to hurt you and your skin is waterproof so even if you do get damp your clothes will dry out and you’ll be fine.

Finally public transport isn’t being utilised as much as it should be, this point relates back to people being lazy as well. It of course depends where in the world you are but usually there are options offered such as buses or trains, unless you are somewhere like the middle of Mongolia. I’ve used public transport in the UK, Australia and parts of Europe, and from what I’ve experienced it is usually extremely good. Its things such as bad pu

blicity with delays and cancelled services and the fact that a bus doesn’t take you from door to door like a car that seem to put many people off. These services are designed to cover the areas evenly and will get you close to your destination. In some cases it is also faster in some over crowed cities which use bus lanes and underground train systems. The use of public transport will also help reduce your carbon footprint and works our cheaper for most journeys.

Thanks for reading

Check out these links

Extreme public transport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPyYGw9Jn6w

not your average commute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qWWCN2_XbY