IT WAS a friend’s husband, a passionate driver, who first alerted me to the idea of the car club. My toddler and I had made our usual journey to his warehouse apartment on two buses and I was about to call for a cab home.

He has never been able to understand why people would voluntarily live without a car, even in London, and especially if they have children.

He was dangling the prospect of a middle way: a car-free existence, with the option to drive sometimes, when it really would make a difference. I had been carless for three years at this point and joined Streetcar instantly.

The principle is simple. You pay an annual fee of £49.50, get a smartcard and a pin number, which gives access to about 500 cars all over London, which can be hired for any period from 30 minutes to six months. Cars, all VW Golfs, with a few ultra-economic Polo BlueMotions, cost £5.95 an hour (£3.95 for the Polos), capped at £49.50 for 24 hours and further discounts for a week or month.

You book online or by phone and can have a car immediately, if it is available. Or you can book up to six months in advance.

Better still, you can cancel up to an hour before the hire is due to begin without incurring any charges. The only downside is that if the nearest car is already booked you must find the next nearest one.

Each car is kept in a set space from where you pick it up and leave it. You unlock the car by waving a smartcard against a reader on the windscreen and get the keys by typing your pin into another reader inside. You pay monthly for your usage – including mileage (first 30 miles per 24 hours is free) and congestion charge, if incurred. There is a card in each car to buy petrol.

In the past 12 months I have spent £745 on Streetcars, on journeys ranging from two hours to a long weekend. A couple of times my nearest car has not been available when I wanted it – at short notice at weekends, but I now have two cars within five minutes of where I live and several more within 15 minutes’ walk.

I am convinced that Streetcar and its competitors are the way forward for city dwellers. The financial savings over car ownership are considerable and the smugness value incalculable.

www.streetcar.co.uk

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