To think we should all ensure our daughters can drive a car

[Fiddledee]

So many posters saying they can't do x,y,z because they can't drive. Yes its expensive but I think alot more valuable than alot of other stuff we spend on our kids.

I will be marching my daughter to the learner driver school on the first day possible. Even if we couldn't afford it I would encourage her to learn asap after starting work and to save for it.

I just want to reduce the dependency of women on men driving them everywhere. We are not in the 1950s.

I will not be letting DD make up her mind about learning to drive. It's a must.

Not going to let her make up her mind about learning to read, either.

Oh for goodness sakes!!!

There are way too many cars on the road as it is....

Hope you have also taken into account the massive insurance premiums for teens and early 20s drivers

Triphop - I agree entirely.

I am curious as to what sort of lifestyle some people who don't drive, live because I would have absolutely no life whatsoever without a car. Apart from walking to the village shop.

We once took the bus to the city. It took three times as long as driving as it stopped at every third paving slab. It cost us £8 and two of my DC fell over and hurt themselves.
Oh, and we missed the bus back and had to wait over an hour to get another one.

Never, Ever Again!!!!!

sausages, no one said young people need a car, just that they need a licence.

Just out of interest,

www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/fom2005/03_fopm_urbanareas.pdf

Approx 80% live in urban areas
Approx 30% live in the top ten cities (London, Birmingham, Manchester, etc)

The thing I struggle with, largely because I don't know how many people can afford them (not necessarily literally, but justify the spending on them, esp. 2 cars per household), but how many people choose to live a car dependent life style

Yabu. Dd is 19 and cannot drive. She doesnt own a car. She cant afford lessons and is an independant adult. Her brothers cant drive either. They get the bus.
Nothing they have ever done has everbeen restricted because we didnt own a car or they cannot drive.

Triphop, driving and reading are hardly the same kind of skills.

mumwithdice

You might manage without a car ".....even in tiny Cornish villages...." but I certainly cannot and it baffles me how you can.

We have two cars and factor the cost into our choice to live where and as we do.

DH does 50K miles a year so his running costs are astronomical but it comes with his job.

I drive a gas guzzler because I have kids and horses. I only know one person without a car, most people we know have two. All my girlfriends have their own cars.

Riven, then you must live on a fantastic bus route or have hobbies/interests that do not involve travelling anywhere or at any time not on a direct bus route.

''I will be marching my daughter to the learner driver school on the first day possible''.

Jawohl mein Fuhrer

I think the car thing is largely attitudinal for many people. I don't know Riven's case, but if you live in a town, you can fit your hobbies/shopping etc around not having a car - you can get shopping delivered, you can cycle, you can get a bus. Waiting for 10 minutes at a bus-stop isn't a bad thing, you just open a book or listen to music.

I sympathise with those who need to drive however.

Triphop - I don;t think the two are comparable at all. Plus, presumably your DD will learn/learnt to read as a child. She is unable to learn to dive until she is an adult. IMO you can't forcean adult to learn. They are independent people, capable of making their own life choices.

certainly you can offer them the opportunities to learn to drive. But force them? IMO - no.

Having a driving licence is not the same as having a car. I have never had a problem getting behind the wheel, even when it's been years since the last time I drove. It's true that a lot of people can get by without cars, but there are situations in which a car is useful, or even essential. Being able to use a car widens your options. You don't have use it every day, or even every month. Carpooling anyone?

I do think that not holding a licence disenfranchises you.

Whether you use it or not, it's important to have it, I think.

That I can agree with. I have a licence but no car. Perhaps once a month it might be good to have a car, but is it worth the thousands per year it would cost? Not for me right now.

Fuzzpig yes, a lot of high schools do have driving in their curriculum. Mine was optional and I didn't take it, which was stupid of me. :) We're more spread out here, and public transport that goes between cities is rare.

To put another slant on it.

Something I have seen that would drive me loopy - when there is one car in the family and the mother is a SAHM with several small children and the man insists on taking the car to work where he drives it a few miles and it sits on the car park for ten hours. Meanwhile the wife drags three kids, buggies and shopping across buses .

What's that all about?

Pendeen Apologies, I wasn't clear. I was referring to the idea that one can't get to interesting places without a car when holidaying. I am of that dreadful breed of Londoner who likes to go to Cornwall on holiday (but FIL is half Cornish). We manage then perfectly fine, but I can see how living there all year round could make a car necessary.

I'm not against driving. I think it is a useful skill; it's just that I personally can't do it and not for lack of trying either. So I find ways to adapt. And, as many other non-drivers have said, it really irks me the way some drivers look on us as second class citizens.

Diverting from the OP but on the subject of the cost of car ownership: it is getting really expensive so I think it's time to start being a bit imaginative about how you own or use one, rather than just every driver in the household having a car each.

Our mid-term plan is to move back to our home town, where my office is based and DS will go to pre-school/school. That way I can give up my car.

Houses are much more expensive in that town but we figure with what we save on owning/running one car we might afford the higher house prices.

YANBU.

It is essential that our daughters learn to drive.

However, we should keep our sons off the road until they are at least 35.

surely its the daughter's choice

if she is old enough to drive, she is old enough to make up her own mind

i know my son's girlfriend has no intention of learning to drive, and thats her choice

I completely agree that being able to drive is an important skill.

When I was a teenager, I had no interest in learning to drive. I lived in a city, with good public transport, and I have to admit I was a little bit afraid of driving (even though I'm normally quite a confident ballsy type person). My father insisted that I learn - I did not have a choice. I think he might have even made me pay for part of cost of lessons too but I could be wrong.

Just because he made me learn, didn't mean he was going to buy me a car. I have always been quite environmentally aware, and I am happy to take public transport wherever possible. But being able to drive gave me choices - in terms of jobs, needing to hire a car on holiday in remote locations, or those times when you just need to get to IKEA and have too many things to carry home can't be arsed with their delivery timetable.

I learned to drive in Canada, and when I moved to the UK over 10 years ago I stopped driving entirely for the first 7 years or so (because public transport was too easy in London, and driving was too expensive). When my DH and I bought a car 4 years ago, I discovered I had lost all my confidence. I had to deal with driving on the other side of the road, teeny tiny narrow roads often dotted with cars parked right in the middle of the lane (WTF is that about? I still don't get it), speed cameras everywhere, and thinking in miles instead of kilometers.

So I never bothered. DH drives everywhere, and if he's not available to drive me somewhere that I can't get to easily by public transport, I just don't go. It's ridiculous!

Now that I'm on maternity leave, I really regret not trying harder initially. I don't need to drive every day, but even in central London it does come in handy once in a while. But DH has been encouraging me, even forcing me at times, to get behind the wheel, because he also feels it's an important skill for me to have and wants me to be independent. So I am trying!

And my DD will be required to learn to drive, just as I was.... as will any sons if we ever have any.

Public transport is not always cheaper, when we lived in town it was cheaper to run a small old car (no depreciation) with the lowest road tax than it was to pay for my DH to commute on the train this included car permits etc...