Taxes, insurance, fuel, maintenance. There are several expenses involved in having your own car in the garage. Engineer Luiz Felipe Azevedo, 49, put the expenses at the tip of the pencil and, in 2018, chose to sell the family vehicle.
He says that, at the time, the twins were nine years old. The biggest difficulty was having to take the booster seat everywhere, ensuring that they were transported safely.
“But soon they grew up and it was no longer necessary to carry, it made it much easier. Today we do everything on foot or, when we need to, we use Uber”, he says.
A resident of Botafogo, in the south of Rio de Janeiro, Azevedo works close to home and calls his car through the app every day so he doesn’t get to work sweaty. “It’s only two kilometers, so on the way back, I always walk,” he says.
His wife, Roberta, 49, works downtown and uses public transport daily. The children Vitor and Beatriz, now 12 years old, go to school on foot and do extracurricular activities in their own neighborhood.
When the family decides to travel, they always resort to renting a car. Even with these expenses, Azevedo calculates that he saves at least R$ 15 thousand a year.
“In 2018, when we decided to sell the car, we thought exclusively about the financial issue. Nowadays I also consider it an environmental decision. People end up having a car for convenience, but they don’t stop to do the math and [descobrir] how much it consumes the budget.”
The founder of the research institute Multiplicidade Mobilidade Urbana, Glaucia Pereira, agrees that people do not stop to think about how it is possible to live without having their own car. She explains that half of the Brazilian population today lives without a car — often for lack of resources, not by choice.
“Data from the IBGE for 2018 show that, in the households of black people, 70% do not have a car. The feeling that everyone has it is something more elitist and from the large metropolises”, he says.
Glaucia also says that not having a car in the garage solves several issues, including financial, physical and mental.
“The person who walks or commutes by bicycle practices physical activity, is less stressed and saves money, as they do not have the expenses of a car or financing for years and years. There are several social problems that we can solve with active mobility”, he concludes. .
University professor Isabella Cardoso, 51, says that her savings were even greater when she gave up a car. She says that she ‘collected’ traffic tickets on her way from home to work, at Unicamp (University of Campinas).
“The signaling changed from 60 km/h to 50 km/h and, due to total lack of attention, I got several fines, which totaled R$ 3,000, and I lost my wallet for having exceeded the score. That’s when I decided to sell my car until regularize my driver’s license”, he says.
What was supposed to be temporary became permanent. Since October 2019, she has been living on foot. “I live 20 km from work and it still pays to go by app. I got used to it and take advantage of my time to read in the car or answer messages on my cell phone.”
With the pandemic, the teacher started working at home office. “I rented my parking space in the building and bought a bicycle.”
Isabella leaves her bike on the university campus and travels inside with her. “I just don’t ride a bike from home to work because the issue of safety weighs. There are no bike lanes”, she says.
The specialist in urban mobility Glaucia Pereira says that there is no point in replacing your own car with an app, as this does not solve the environmental issue or the traffic in large cities.
“You have to think of app cars as an integration with public transport. For example, you use Uber, 99, etc. to get to the subway station or to the bus terminal.”
This is exactly what publicist Muriel Xavier, 29, does daily. At the end of 2020, she decided to move from Greater São Paulo to the center of the capital and sell her car because of the wide range of public transport in the region, in addition to the possibility of use transport apps when needed.
In this period of recovery —and with face-to-face work only twice a week—, she uses the subway and the company’s charter to get to and from work, in Cajamar, in the metropolitan region.
“I go by Uber to the subway and then I take the chartered one. The stationary car was just an expense and it didn’t make sense to have one to use twice a week”, he says. “Another advantage of not having a car anymore is going out with friends and being able to drink without having to worry.
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