Cheap fares for non-drivers better than a Freedom Pass?

Published: 21 October, 2010

• JOHN Collins (Letters, October 14) suggests that Freedom Passes should be given to people without cars rather than pensioners.

This is an interesting idea but it has the disadvantage that it does nothing to combat the tendency for those who need a car occasionally to use it for all their transport requirements.

People could play the system by giving up owning a car and hiring one when they needed it, perhaps through a car club. Would this be a problem or opportunity?

How about a compromise solution: allow non-driving Londoners, including young people who had not yet learned to drive, to travel at child rates, paying for this by a hefty rise in the cost of a resident’s parking permit. This would improve road safety (by keeping young people away from the wheel), relieve the pressure on roadside parking (and so help businesses that need access to people’s homes, and prevent the obstruction of bus routes). It would also reduce pollution.
Simon Norton
Howitt Close, NW3

Can’t drive!

• JOHN Collins’s letter seems to be suggesting that Freedom Passes should be given only to people who haven’t got cars.

I would agree that it is obvious people in this situation need the Freedom Pass far more than those who have got cars but there are two points.

What about someone, such as myself, who is part-owner of a car but can’t drive?

Should I depend completely on my driver husband to take me everywhere?  

The other is that the amount motorists use their cars should be taken into account. 

For instance my husband and I use our car almost solely for the purpose of doing a big shop: so big it would be impossible to take it home on public transport. The only other occasional use we have for it is to go to the seaside, for example, (obviously outside the range of the Freedom Pass) in summer.

If, however, we lost our Freedom Passes we would have to use it for every journey beyond walking distance which would obviously have a drastic effect on the environment. 

I might agree that people without cars should be first in the queue for Freedom Passes but certainly not that only they should be entitled to them.
Margaret King,
NW3