At 28, my husband and i started trying for a car. Now, we've got to give it up for adoption | thearticle

It’s tough, growing up in London. I’m not talking about the early stages of shedding childhood or creeping on into adolescence.  I’m talking about the next stage, young adulthood when, they

say, ‘Millennials’ come unstuck. Eight percent of those born between 1981 and 1996 take their parents with them to job interviews. We often have pocket money for salaries because we would

rather work jobs that are in some sense play, rather than the serious work of accounting or law. One in four of us still live at home. The average age to get married for a woman is

thirty-five, and for a man, thirty-seven. Having no stable job and no money, I lived at home until I was twenty-seven, when I got married, moved in with my husband and finally grew up. After

a wonderful year just the two of us, we decided we would take the next big step on the journey of our life together. We decided to start trying for a car. A car would give us freedom. We

would never need to get on an aeroplane again, which appealed to my environmental concerns. We needed a car to visit our grandparents in the country. We wanted to offer our friends lifts.

And it seemed like a grown-up thing to own. Our first real grown-up responsibility that was not too alive. As soon as we started trying, I saw Golfs and Polos everywhere, in all different

colours and shapes and engine sizes. It seemed like the obvious option – a car that would last and not break down and maybe one day fit a baby seat in the back. But then we met Trevor, my

father in law’s childhood friend, and Trevor introduced us to his BMW convertible, which was just a few years younger than me – with only 50,000 miles under her beautiful silvery-blue

bonnet. She smelled like an old car, of petrol and imperial mints. She played tapes not CDs, and the indicator clicked and ticked with a sound that transported me back to my first car, an E

registration Vauxhall Nova. She had only two doors and probably no room for a baby seat. But she was cheaper than any Golf or Polo. And she was ours. We bought her on 5 th January, the day

of our first wedding anniversary, and drove to Deal in Kent and ate crab sandwiches in the pub and Rum and Raisin ice cream on the pier. It was freezing but dry. And as we faced out to the

North Sea, we realised that we also faced the start of a new kind of life together, not better or worse, just different. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that my husband summoned me

with a very grave expression into our kitchen. ‘We’ve been screwed,’ he said. ‘We have to give up the car.’ ‘What? Why?’ ‘ULEZ.’ The Ultra Low Emission Zone. I was aware of it, but had not

read or heard anything alarming up till now. Nor had my husband. Together we subjected our car to the online vehicle checker function. It failed. Our car, though petrol, was a ULEZ failure.

She is too old. I looked at the blood red patch plastered over the map of London. From April 2019, if I drive through Westminster, Lambeth or the city of London at any time day or night, any

day of the week, I will pay £12.50 on top of the congestion charge. The route to my grandparent’s house is immediately twice as long if we want to avoid the fare. We hadn’t heard anything

about ULEZ encroaching on where we live, the two of us and our car. I admit, I don’t listen much to the news, apart from on the radio when I am driving in my car. My husband, meanwhile, has

a secret news habit and knows every story that is unfolding nation and worldwide. That we did not know about the ULEZ expansion is not a mark of our collective ignorance.    Too late we

discovered that from October 2021, if I drive anywhere within the North and South circular road, I will pay £12.50. Before October 2021 we will have to give up our car for adoption. Or as

the ULEZ website suggests, submit her to the scrappage scheme and receive money towards a silent, soulless electric vehicle. If this policy were to reduce the number of vast, energy guzzling

Land Rovers, Range Rovers or any other big, brash car on the streets of London, fair enough. But I fear those cars pass the test and will crash on with impunity from one Ivy restaurant to

the next. Those who this policy will affect are people who have had the same car since they could first save up the money to buy one, those who care about the quality of their car over its

cold functionality, and those who would rather decrease their carbon footprint by staying on terra firma.