Take me to a hire place

by Simon Handby in Your car on 20.06.08

Unlike the many people struggling with the cost of petrol or public transport, I’m lucky enough to live within walking distance of work. In fact, just over a year ago, I sold the car that I could no longer afford to run.

It’s a weird feeling at first, being without a car. I’d been an owner since 1994 and had developed a few habits that proved hard to unlearn: the supermarket run and the casual visit to friends, for example.

But I’ve found that it doesn’t take long before you begin to appreciate the benefits of doing away with your beloved motor. No longer do I wake in the dead of night, full of concern for its sleek flanks on the mean city streets. I no longer spend precious minutes driving up and down said streets looking for a gap in which to leave it for the night. And – and sorry to be smug – I’m not having to pay today’s ludicrous petrol prices while I’m doing it.

Of course, cars are almost as much a fact of life as kids, and I wouldn’t be sounding anything like as pleased with myself if I had a couple and all their trimmings to cart about. Still, what finally made me go car-free was working out that I could hire a car on nearly 20 weekends each year for just what it was costing me to keep my own (a 1995 Peugeot 306) road-legal and roadworthy.

As it turns out, I’m finding that I don’t need a car anything like that often, but I am becoming something of a car hire veteran. It all starts off feeling awkward and clumsy, but in time you learn to appreciate the finer points of car hire etiquette: having a proper poke around in the pre-hire check, nodding politely during the run down of the controls, and even not bristling at the timid enquiry into where you might be headed. Do it often enough, and you get to know the hire staff by name, and your driving license number by heart.

You learn about the cars, too. Given the opportunity I could bore you with an appraisal of the appliance-like Hyundai Getz (above), the numb steering but great brakes on Toyota’s Aygo, or the surprisingly adept road handling of Ford’s Fiesta – I expect the faster ones are great fun.

In fact, hiring is fun, even when you’re on a budget and all you get is a supermini. When you don’t get to drive so often, there’s a great appeal to picking up a properly maintained car that you can hoon around in for a couple of days, before handing it - and its maintenance, tax and car insurance - back to somebody else, and simply walking away.