11 - Drive

Sometimes, the voices ask -- you can drive, can't you? Sure can. Thinking about it, this very month sees the silver anniversary of my driving licence. When I passed, Two Tribes was top of the charts. A point is all that you can score, indeed.

Got a logistical minestrone for Tuesday: need to start working from home, pick up daughter from sleepover, take her to in-laws out in the sticks and finally head to Martlesham. Can't do all of that on two wheels. Four wheels good today.

Plus, of course, it's free ... in that I'm not handing over any money for fares, etc. Granted, the car was around £10,000 a couple of years ago, road tax is £145, last service was £200, same again for insurance, breakdown cover is £80 and there's £50 worth of diesel in the tank. Apart from that, not a bean.

Even back in 2006, it was reckoned that the average cost of running a car was over £5,000 a year, i.e. £15 a day, in other words my taxi fare to Adastral. Go do the sums yourself, if you dare. At that rate, it's daft not to use it, isn't it?

We know that LONE DRIVER is an anagram of EVIL OR NERD. Are solo motorists necessarily bad people? Yes, if they're driving in from Grange Farm. Less so if they're starting out from further afield, though we've already seen the joys of liftshare, various bus services and even the train to Woodbridge.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to cycle most days, so taking the car becomes a bit of a treat. I can leave home a little bit later, catch up on a podcast (Mark Kermode, Adam & Joe, The Bugle) on the way, no need to change clothes when I arrive, maybe nip into Woodbridge at lunchtime, et cetera.

On the flipside I feel a bit sluggish having not biked and I can't stand sitting in a jam (e.g. to leave the site), especially when cyclists are undertaking with ease.

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

Cost - free-ish, though see above
Duration - 20mins (return journey 17:45-18:05)

Pros - convenience; listen to radio; no timetables; carry other items
Cons - sorry, planet Earth; doesn't burn those calories

07 - Taxi

IANAA -- I am not an artist -- but I'd guess that the opposite of green would be red. That gives us the colour of today's journey, a gaudy sampler of scarlets and vermillions and crimsons.

I'd made the call the night before, feeling slightly dirty and scabrous. Er, yeah, I need a ride tomorrow, please. Er, that's right, to BT (nobody round here calls it Adastral). About how much will that be? Wow, er, OK, see you then.

Looked out of the window at five to eight and there he was, cruising down the road. Feeling a tad guilty about not biking and the planet in general, out we go, into the belly of the beast. He apologises for being early but he wanted to be sure of a parking spot, my road setting the benchmark for parallel parking. No problem, I say, and we're off up Valley Road.

Go out to BT much, I ask? Not as much as I used to, he says. They're clamping down, apparently, encouraging people to take the ****ing bus and all. And although it hasn't affected him much, his pals at the station rank aren't happy campers. See, they've got this ****ing shuttle service going straight out there these days. Subsidised, innit. Not even sure that's legal.

It's a bit like that County Council bus that goes round town. That was free for people working for 'em. Turned out that they had to make it available to the general public, not that they advertise it.

They used to have a bus from the station to BT years back, but that died a death. Let's see how this one goes. And that 66 is full of (comment deleted).

Joe The Taxi opts for a surprisingly straightforward route out of town, via Colchester Road and onto the A1214 through Kesgrave. 30mph limit? ****ing stupid. It's 40mph by the hospital and the ring road, so why here?

Not many cars here today, he says, nodding to the visitors' car park. Mind you, there's a mass exodus at 4pm, isn't that right?

Pulling up outside reception, I look at the meter: £13.20. Gulp. I convince myself that I've easily saved this amount and lots more besides by biking nearly every day for the last x years. But it still hurts to hand over the cash.

Cost - £13.20, and that's with no tip!
Duration - 15 mins (07:55-08:10): he had a good run

Pros - works around you and you alone; quick
Cons - cost; environmental impact; smalltalk

02 - Lift Share

Summer 2008 and a ticket to the Latitude Festival (nice one) is stuck to the fridge. Reading through the festival website, those organisers are imploring me to use public transport. Looking into it, that ain't gonna happen. I can most likely get there, say by train to Halesworth, but coming back on the same day at who knows what time rules it out. One option they'd like me to consider is sharing a car.

Which is how come I find myself registered on liftshare.com, "the world's best journey matching system". Registered, but never used in anger. Until today, that is.

Thinking ahead for once in my life, I went on to the LiftShare site last Thursday to give it a go. I added a new journey, specifying start (Ipswich, IP1), destination (Adastral Park, IP5), leave time (08:00 on 21/7/2009), return time (17:00 on 21/7/2009) and flexibility (+/- 30mins). All pretty straightforward so far.

You then act like an ill-prepared arsonist and Search For Matches. Rather cleverly, you're presented with a map showing potential travel buddies. Those little cars are coloured in different ways:

* green - offering a lift journey
* red - seeking a lift journey
* blue - offering or seeking a lift journey

Yep, it's a bit like Guardian Soulmates. Top of my list was a sky blue vehicle leaving from a couple of streets away. More details please:

* male, 40-60, travelling Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri, offering or seeking

I hit the "Send a request to share" and sat back. Within half an hour, (let's call him) John had responded via email to confirm the offer. Needed a few more emails to sort out the details due to our innate Englishness: when would you like to leave? Well, I'm flexible: what about you? And so on.

Bottom line is within 5 minutes of leaving the house on a drizzly day, I was at his door, an otherwise complete stranger, and two minutes later we were Adastral bound. Interestingly, for me, he threaded his way down to Sproughton Road and on to the A14, i.e. what my son would call the fast road. Needless to say, I don't bike that way to work.

As we zoomed over the Orwell Bridge, he said that most of his colleagues also drive to work from either Ipswich or Woodbridge, and that this was the first time he'd been contacted via the liftshare website. Though coming past Foxhall Road, he happened to spot a friend of his on a pushbike. Into the site and he parked in his usual spot, all of 20m from my office.

And he was good enough to give me a lift home too: cheers, John.

Cost - zero to me; would it be wrong to tip?
Duration - 20 mins (8:30 - 8:50), plus 5 mins walk from the house

Pros - sharing a car has got to be A Good Thing
Cons - needs planning ahead