I remember reading a letter the editor in the newspaper, where the writer said that his Chevrolet suburban was more efficient than his neighbour's Toyota Prius, because he would only drive his suburban once or twice a week, almost always with several people in it, while his neighbour would drive his Prius to the convience store down the street and such.

No it's not more efficient, he doesn't use it as much.

Most people have a certain amount of necessary driving to do, but in England a lot of people go on about unnecessary car use, for example parents driving kids to school who live only a mile (or less) away. And politicians keep wanting people to use public transport but except in big cities like London with advanced public transport systems, generally people are just too lazy to get the bus (every time they do surveys, people pretty much say they'd only get on a bus if there was a bus stop more or less on their doorstep) or they seem to think they are too good for it. But the thing is most small towns don't have very good transport systems so it's understandable why most people just jump in the car to go to the shops and such. I mean I do this myself a lot of the time (but sometimes I get the bus into town).

@G-Mann: this lazyness and the idea, to use always the cars, is getting less, since the fuel prices were increased in the last months.
Especially in the towns, I've the impression, that there are less cars on the road than, for example, last year or half year ago.

There is a family of kids on my street whose parents do that. But the thing is, they aren't even driving them to school, they are driving them to the bus stop (which is about 1000 feet away from their house) Every day when I'm standing and waiting for the bus, their green Dodge Caravan pulls up, parks on the side of the street, then waits there and idles until the bus comes (which wastes even more fuel). There's another kid that sometimes pulls up in a blue Lincoln Continental, and another in a gold Toyota Corolla. All of which live within 1/4 of mile from the bus stop, yet their parents drive them anyway. Meanwhile I (who live further away than all of those other people) have to walk (my parents won't drive me becuase they think it's wasteful and pointless) and stand there to wait, not sit in a car like they do. The only reason I can think of to do that is if it's really cold out, which I can understand as my parents drive me and let me wait in the warm car too when it's like that.

However, today was a little different than most days. I really didn't want to ride the bus again this morning. So my brother and I drove to school in the car (as he has bought a parking space in the school lot). When we got home, my mother made a big stink about it. She said it was pointless and wasted gas and that the bus could have taken us for free, plus my brother doesn't even usually buy the gas, so it's money out of their pockets. To his credit though, we did stop at the gas station and put gas in the car on the way home, even if it was only becuase the needle was below the "E" and my brother did put only one gallon in it (he's quite stingy)

But my point is, it's not very nice to take the bus all the time. Sometimes a car is just easier and more comfortable.

Why did your brother buy a parking space if your mom's going to get mad when he drives to school?

Well sometimes he has a legetimate reason, like he has swim practice or something after school and can't take the bus home. But if he drives just becuase he "wants" to like we did today, then she genetrally does not approve. Next time we will hide it from her better, as she is not usually awake when we leave in the morning and won't really notice the car gone during the day (when there are seven of them one or two missing is not very noticeable )

Within such a short time and short distance the car (engine and heating) won't be warm. Except you have something like this:
http://www.eberspaecher.com/servlet/PB/menu/1003710_l2/index.html
- like me in my Omega. It's really a great thing

There you're right. The amount of idiotic, stupid, bad smelling, etc.people in public buses, trams or railways sucks me.

When I started my job in the early 90ies, at first I took a bus and the subways in my home-town Hannover. After was nerved by the other people, I took my bicycle. 10 kilometers in the morning, 10 kilometers in the evening. no problem (Hannover is flat, no hills at all anywhere).

Later, when I moved to the town of Dortmund, I had 17 km to my work. There I used the car (ca.20 minutes, if everything was going right). For a bicycle (resp.for me )the hills were to steep. With bus and subway I needed minimum 1:05 hours one way.

Now, since we live on the countryside, with a distance of 65 km to work, only the car is possible. With public transport (bus, railway AND subway) I would need min 2 1/2 hours (one way!)

Since a few months I have a fight with my boss. I want to have a home-office. I'm fucked up with the lot of driving. A home-office is possible, but my direct boss don't like it.
My personal phase with friendly and honestly presented, founded arguments is gone. No I'm acting stubborn. This is not really helpful too, so I've just started terroristic behaviour. I can hold on raisin' hell for a long time, as long, until by boss will have learned to accept my desire.

Not to interrupt the discussion, but here are a few more pictures:

damnit that Land Rover is awesome!

Well here i am again to start posting on the forum, i see this thread has grown up a lot since i left two months ago!

Well here i am with a new "rare" car, specially in Europe, the first one i see in my life, here it is

Today, a few seconds after I saw them again: http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle.php?id=140306#AddComment

I saw the new Citroen SUV. I could only read something with "Crosser". The front hood looked like from a C6.

C-Crosser

Geo Metro is rare for Europe? Thought it was sold there... and the Suzuki version too right?

No the Geo wasnt at all, at least not in Spain, and i dont think it was for the rest of Europe, we had the Swift but no the Geo, hence why i was surprised when i saw this one

It looks like the Geo is parked wrong because it's facing a different direction. I always feel like doing that at the place where I'm living now. There is no parking on the side of the street I'm coming from so I have to turn around to park.

That's illegal isn't it? To park in the opposite direction on the incorrect side of the street?

Are you sure? i dont think so

It is here, I think you can be ticketed for doing that.

We used to be able to park on both sides of our street in front of my house. But a few months ago our stupid prissy next door neighbor, who for some reason doen't approve of us having eight cars, got the city to pass a law that you can only park on one side (she cliams it is because of outsiders parking on our street but the real reason is obviously us as we are the only ones who park on the street anyway) But anyway the point is we now have to back out of our driveway, and then turn around to the other direction in order to park on the right side of the street. And if it wasn't illegal to park in the wrong direction why would we turn around in the first place? Something we're always extra carelful to do now is park directly in back of her driveway when we park on the street, just to piss her off. What I really want to do is to take a baseball bat to her Chevrolet and show her the true meaning of a "junky" car (I won't really of course, it is just a fantasy of mine)