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Free bus passes for over-60s have "health benefits"?

  • 25-09-2012 4:44pm
    #1
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭


    BBC News citing several studies, which are not necessarily unbiased.
    Free bus passes encourage the over-60s to be more physically active, whether they are poor or wealthy, say UK researchers.

    Free bus travel for over-60s in England was introduced in 2006 but there is pressure for the scheme to be scrapped. ...

    The Imperial College London study examined data from the National Travel Survey from 2005, the year before free bus passes were introduced, until 2008. They looked at the travel diaries of 11,218 people with a free bus pass and 5,693 without a pass. ...

    After analysing different sub-groups of bus pass holders, the study found that women over the age of 70 and living in London or in urban areas were significantly more likely to use buses and walk three or more times a week than those without bus passes. ...


Comments

  • #2
    Malena72
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 58 ✭✭Malena72


    I can understand how free bus passes can have health benefits! I often think of a woman I know who in her early 60's looked like an 'old' woman and always seemed fed-up, and she would be outside in her front garden watching out for people to walk by, she would never go anywhere only to the local shop and to Mass and she'd wear the same clothes all the time. Then when she got the old-age pension at 65 and her free bus pass, she was at first afraid to use it in case the bus-driver would pass through the town she was going to, before she would get up off her seat! But gradually she began to have courage and go places, and honestly she became a new woman and with new clothes and new friends she'd meet on the bus, she looked so much younger and confident. Also she'd have lots of little conversations with her neighbours about things she heard 'on the bus', and she'd show them things she bought in 'such and such' a shop! and she was able to encourage others to use their bus pass more often and get out of the house and see towns they'd never been in before! and get to annual events they'd never dream of being able to get to.
    So I do see how the bus passes are beneficial and have good health benefits.


  • #3
    the groutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,096 ✭✭✭✭the groutch


    it's worth also looking at the flipside of it that some of these people are then using the bus for journeys they could easily walk.
    I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen OAPs who were in their late 60s and very physically mobile getting on at one stop, and getting getting off 2 or 3 stops later.
    It can create a habit of laziness, not to mention seriously slow down the buses having to stop especially to let them off/on.


  • #4
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,565 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    A free bicycle would have even more health benefits and probably be cheaper longterm...


  • #5
    Bazzer2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 275 ✭✭Bazzer2


    the groutch wrote: »
    it's worth also looking at the flipside of it that some of these people are then using the bus for journeys they could easily walk.
    I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen OAPs who were in their late 60s and very physically mobile getting on at one stop, and getting getting off 2 or 3 stops later.
    It can create a habit of laziness, not to mention seriously slow down the buses having to stop especially to let them off/on.

    I think the same could be said of others with passes, too, such as the omnipresent lower elements. Nice little benefit for deciding to inject one's body with filth. :mad:


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