to bevery disappointed that only 63% of women can DRIVE!! ffs

[JunoWatt]

its like saudi arabia here
ONLY JUST OVER HALF OF US! GET A LICENCE LADIES

What gets me is the people on here implying that it is actually preferable to not be able to drive. I just can't see how that would ever be the case, it might well be preferable not TO drive, but not, not to be ABLE to drive.

Its not like I havent tried, I spent about £3,000 on tests and lessons

Non drivers generally do choose where to live based on getting around. To be honest, after a certain age, old folk shouldnt be driving. My mum is 76 and will give up soon. She can get to hospital using hospital transport. The dentist and doc are on bus routes and she has afree pass. Shopping can be by bus or online. At 76 she uses a computer having learned recently.
There is no NEED for driving. Its a convenience, a luxury, not an actual vital and needed life skill.

We tend to live round the amenities, and would never choose rural locations in general.

I dont think anyone denies its a useful skill. But its not really a necassary one that leads to comparisions with saudia arabia!
I do drive. Dh cant. I chose not to drive or own a car for years and was far freer and had more money. Now i waste all of dds DLA on the car and i have to find somewhe to park the bastard thing rather than leaping freely off the bus like we used to or getting hospital trasnport.
If my health hadnt failed we wouldnt need a car. When it fails further the car will go.

"I know because my auntie lives in the US and she is shock how I cannot pass my driving test. She told me that its not like you are retarded or anything and she likened it to a disability not being able to drive shock I was lost for words."

I lived in the US when I was young and took a driving test there when I was 17, I remember after the test the examiner said to me "I shouldn't really pass you but I'm going to pass you anyway"

I can't imagine them saying that in the UK.

I have also taken a test in the UK and it was much harder.

I'm with piglet. I am 2 grand poorer and tried harder than I ever have at anything in my life. I just don't get it. I am an intelligent graduate but after two years of trying so hard it made me sweat and several prangs and frights, it beat me.

Can't people just accept that some of us gave it our all before making an informed decision that being nervous, jumpy and convnced you will die encased in metal might not make you a safe and confident driver?

As for the USA-yes my cousins are amazed I can't drive. However driving over there is largely automatics and the driving test is not so stringent nor are the roads so busy. Britain's roads are aggressive and overcrowded. Not many of my US cousins are happy to drive over here, in fact they don't like it at all.

I took a driving test in virginia when we lived there. 5 mins round a car park. In an automatic. That was it. And you can drive at 15.
Shocking and dangerous and explains the high car related death rate and maiming rate.

kendodd I think a lot of Americans think its their right to own a car.

Thats right Nesta I have a postgrad degree, consider myself to be intelligent, why can't I master the art of driving. My auntie drove in the UK once and she hated it, and could not get to grips with the manual gear system.

I think that I could pass first time in the US then, sounds so easy.

Most cars in the US are autos.

I started lessons at 18, hoping to pass before I went to uni (about six months). Nowhere near ready by then.

Started lessons on graduating, had lessons for TWO YEARS and failed eight tests . Swore I was just not one of life's drivers.

Began lessons again at 32, after DH was told he would be made redundant and we realised he was unlikley to be able to take DC to nursery in a new job - meaning I would have to give up work, as I would have to get one bus to nursery and then two buses back to my work. It would have taken me two hours or more and I have to be at work by 8am. Buses don't even start running til 6.30ish here. Then I would have had to do the same thing in reverse, except I finish work at 5.30 and nursery closes at six.

Finally passed test aged nearly 33.

So, for many years I would have been one of the 37%. It's not like I didn't try. Passing a driving test is hard for many people, and very expensive. tbh I wouldn't have tried again, but was put in a situation where I had to, and that time I got lucky.

Not read entire thread. However, I have a driving licence but not driven for 10 years. Sod all point living in central london and haven't been able to afford a car until recently.

But since I had DS I've taken refresher lessons not because I really, really want to drive but because I might need to in an emergency. Plus as he grows up he'll need driving around to activities.

Have had 5 refresher lessons and don't feel at all comfortable. Know I need to fucking well get used to it but find it quite terrifying in London. But I really need to do it and am forcing myself to crack on with it.

Also, it's not all about passing a test. Loads of people pass a test and then end up being non drivers, just like me until very recently.

I think you are wrong to assert that most Americans think it is their right to own a car. But most American women think it is their right to drive, and would be amazed at British women who tried but failed to learn, in obviously larger numbers than British men, who are also doing the harder British driving test.

Why are British women so afflicted by nerves when it comes to driving, and more to the point why are they not ashamed of themselves for stating this? Most American women would keep their nerves about driving (if they have any) a secret. It is not considered acceptable for women to plead nervousness in the US.

In the DCs' high school, you had to pass the driving test or you wouldn't graduate from the high school. Same for swimming, for all but the special ed students -- two practical life skills that were graduation requirements.

mathanxiety I am at the attitude. That comment does sound rather sexist. The US sounds more like SA than Britain tbh. Its better to stay off the road if you feel that you will be unsafe male or female.

Math- driving over here and driivng in the USA is very different. Read Riveninside's post about the driving test she sat over there.

Also, women in the USA learn younger when they have less fear. Teenagers think they are invincible. This is both the reason why they learn to drive quickly and end up killing themsleves in car crashes.

British roads are some of the most crowded in the world. I'm not ashamed to say I am too terrified to drive but I take great exception to you (and the OP)picking on the fact that I am a woman. You know nothing about me or my circumstances and your judging of my fear is offensive. I'm sick of being judged over it and you picking on the fact we non drivers are women is sexist, even coming from another woman.

I hate that the idea that we MUST drive is being perpetuated when many of us lead full and rich lives without it. It saves the planet, it saves money and I live near everything I need.

Why is it unacceptable for women to plead nervousness? With respect to driving, or just generally?

Genuine question, not trying to pick an argument.

But why do more British women feel they will be unsafe on the road than British men? Why is just in Britain that women feel that way? What is it in British culture that makes women feel they can behave like damsels in distress when faced with machines?

And how is the US more like SA? I felt nervous when I first learned to drive, in the US, having never even sat behind the wheel in Ireland. Growing up, I sat in the car with dad driving and saw women drivers in Dublin subjected to horrible abuse (the sort that you hear of in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan) in the early 70s when they were a relatively new phenomenon. When one of my aunts worked in the UK at that time she knew hardly any other women who drove. She had learned to drive a tractor on the family farm when she was 12. I think it is still far more acceptable to make remarks about 'women drivers' in the UK (and Ireland) than it is in the US.

-- 'I think also its a masculine thing to be able to drive ... I guess some see it as an extension of their erm penis'. I am myself at that comment and the attitude underlying it. You are making cars off-limits to you because of something allegedly innate about their nature and yours, and implying that somehow your gender has something to do with your inability to drive. If that's not sexist then I don't know what is.

MIL, has never learned to drive, which made my dh's life difficult as he always had to ferry her around.

Right. I'm TERRIFIED of driving. It is something I simply am not good at. It's a feeling I can't control no more than I can control the British Weather. Do I want to feel like this? No, I'd rather I didn't actually, I'd rather be like other drivers (male or female) who hop into a car at a seconds notice, think no more about it and drive off. That's not me. Me, is a person who dreads the thought, who has nigh on an uncontrollable panic attack at the very thought of getting behind a wheel. I am a danger on the road. So, should I just "get on with it", "get over it" "stop being pathetic"? No, I should do myself and the rest of the driving population (and pedestrians for that matter) a massive favour and accept that it is one thing I cannot do. Simple, sensible and should be acceptable.

Kickingking, because it is not acceptable for men, so why should it be ok for women? Helplessness is not considered an attractive trait for either sex in the US.

I would like to add that the vast majority of the miles I drove in the US were in crowded cities and that I learned to drive, including parallel parking in one of the hilliest areas of one of the most hilly cities there, using a stick shift car. I failed my first driving test but went back the next day and took it again before I had time to become too devastated, and passed. I have driven in Ireland (different side of the road, different hand on the gear lever) and have managed fine.

Shakey, if you had to do it, you would. If you lived in a place where you simply didn't have the option of a bus or train, then you would get better at it because you would do it every day whether you felt fear or not.

Well know math I have a genuine disability that can make me unsafe and thus I am more anxious. Why cant women be nervous, I think that a lot of men should have sense of caution before driving. If driving makes a person nervous and scared why should they be subjected to it, we have choices. Nobody should do something that they really do not want to do, they would not be doing anything else that would enduce such panic and fear so why driving Some people maleandfemale are just not meant to drive. I wish that more men realised this!