Somebody asked about Streetcar. Streetcar is great. I dumped my last car in November and I have had no desire to own another one since. I joined Streetcar (About £50 for the year, plus I opted a small monthly charge for insurance) and my wife is another driver for £25. It is definitely cheaper and much more convenient all round.

Basically I use the W7 and the W3 most of the time and if I need a car for any reason (e.g. collecting my son from a mate's house in Crouch End late at night, or wanting to get somewhere after a few beers), I sometimes use a taxi. It hurts the first time but then it's only £5 to £7 you realise how much you are saving overall.

If I want to drive myself I use the Streetcar - the one I most often use is permanently parked in Hanley Road opposite the Old Dairy, about five minutes from my home. It's like my own personal car! It costs around £3 for half an hour, £6 an hour, so you can get up and back from Crouch End cheaper than the bus, you don't pay anything else, not even petrol. The car is always well turned out and reliable and new. The only thing you have to be aware is that at weekends you have to book it early - it always gets booked for Saturday and Sunday a few days in advance. But there is usually a Streetcar available at short notice somewhere close - there are about eight within walking distance of SGR, down at the station, up Crouch Hill, down Hanley Road - all over the place. The main thing I use Streetcar for is visiting relatives, or going to IKEA or the garden centre, carrying stuff around, stuff that would be difficult any other way. I don't use it much and my monthly motoring bill now never comes to more than £38 - they reckon you save between £2,000 and £3,000 a year not having a car.

The only other factor is that you don't have to mind driving a vehicle you've never driven before - no problem for me, but my wife doesn't like that much, but she soon got used to it I think.

I'm not being paid to say this by Streetcar by the way. Though if anyone here decides to open a Streetcar account, talk to me first - I have some buddy money off vouchers, which means we could both benefit - if I recommend you, and you sign up, we both get money off.

I just think it's a really good idea and it actually works! Deserves to be supported, I say.

Nice. That is a good logo.

I'd join, but I am in love with my quirkly little car. Maybe when petrol prices get too high to make owning and maintaining my own car a sticking point.

@ matty - what car do you have?

tosscat: I have a "classic" (ie. not the new shape) Renault Twingo

^ this one is exactly like mine............. ^ this one is like my previous one
(somebody crashed into me and wrote the cherry coloured one off)

also: only australians, new zealanders and south africans have ever called me matty

I have a VW Bora. The local ruffians scratched a T on the end of the model name on the boot. I was quite amused, which is probably the wrong response.

@tosscat - You are right, I'd do anything to get in and out of IKEA in around eight minutes flat. My timing includes a comfort factor - you have to pre-book your time slot and you don't want to be late back with the car. Last time I booked a car for two and a half hours and had time to park up for lunch at the Three Compasses in Hornsey on the way back. That was *my* reward.

I've also given up my car and moved over to streetcar - I've been on it for about a year so far. I am mainly really positive about it - but have probably had more of a mixed experience than Mike.

Positives really are as Mike says. There are loads of streetcars nearby - I think they have some deal with Islington Council where they have been given some resident's parking spaces. It's also in Cambridge which is great for me as my parents live there.

You do actually have to pay for petrol - but the first 30 miles per day is free (a useful tip here is that if you are booking for a 24hr period make sure it spans two days - that way you get 60 miles free).

I have two negatives really.

The first is that it has definitely stopped me doing things that I would have done if I had a car - it makes you realise how expensive it is to drive away for the weekend. I'm not 100% sure if this is a negative or a positive.

The second one is a bad experience I've had. A few months ago the bollards in a car park came up underneath a streetcar I was driving (I swear the light was green) - smashed up the underneath of the car pretty badly. At the time of the incident streetcar were really good - very understanding - saying they would make sure that I didn't have to pay anything since it wasn't my fault (there is a £500 excess on the insurance unless you pay an extra fee which I didn't). However a few months later they took the £500 out of my account and when I rang it turned out they hadn't followed up with the car park at all and had just paid for the car to be repaired themselves. I'm still arguing this one with them....

However I would definitely still recommend them overall - just so convenient.

Is the CDW charge expensive Jimmy?

I think it's £10 a month for the CDW.

Seemed expensive at the time - seems cheap now!

We've used 1car1 a few times (http://www.1car1.com) and they were fine.

I like the idea of streetcar, but it's their (completely reasonable) ban on hairy dogs that rules it out for us.