to think 'I don't drive' is not a valid excuse?

[peppatax]

Two parts to this really, I don't know many adults that don't drive to ask but if you don't drive, can I ask why not?

Second part I guess is if you don't drive, do you expect others to accommodate you or make allowances for you solely on the basis of not driving?

Lived in London for the last 20 years, walk / cycle / public transport everywhere. Driving would be helpful about once a year, but this is not enough to justify the cost and time that learning would involve.

I really don't see the issue with people not driving. Surely it just comes down to personal choice and individual needs? I'm in my 40s and still can't drive. I've always been terrified on the roads. I've had lessons and DH has tried to teach me, but I hate it. I've never expected anyone to accommodate me, and I've always lived on good bus routes so it's never been a problem.

But public transport is terrible here. It takes 1.5-2hrs to get to college, on two busses, and it's a 20 minute walk to the nearest bus stop. In the car the whole journey is 20 minutes door to door! The need to drive is starting to outweigh the fear, so I think I'm going to give it another go.

In fact I actually find it annoying a lot of the time when I'm offered a lift. People seem offended if I say 'no thanks, I'd rather get the exercise
This happens to me too, I often go for a 4 or 5 mile walk in the early evening because I enjoy it, the other day as I was setting out my neighbour stopped his car and asked if I wanted a lift
No I said
Are you sure?
He didnt even know where I was going
Creepy curb crawling fucker😝

You can beat people, using women, laughing at a pre-schooler in a buggy when his mum is trying to stay fit, but see nothing wrong of plonking their own kids in a car all day and no walking anywhere ever.

What's their excuse for driving and being an awfully lazy example to their kids?

My Mum doesn't drive for health reasons, my sister-in-law is extremely nervous and it would probably finish her off if she had to drive.

I do drive, but my husband has the car during the day often until 7.30pm, so often DD has to arrange a lift. I do try and compensate by picking up later on, offering friends who catch the school bus somewhere after school if they need to be back in for 6.30pm for a performance or something else near us. Also, when DD wants a friend for a DD trip, thinking of those that have helped. When DD was younger, I'd often have others to tea a bit more and as I'd be off as well on a snow day, I was on hand to have someone's child while they were working. What I'm saying is that I made it work both ways.

My friend has never driven and has managed to get twins to 18 years old by herself without needed a car. She's more than happy to get buses or trains or walk to wherever she needs to go and travels much further than me who does drive but doesn't like it and is essentially too lazy to travel anywhere.

You don't want me on the roads, I have no concentration. Not everyone is suited to driving.

despite being declared medically fit to drive, I disagree with that assessment. My husband accomodates for me, and takes me whereever I need to go. we couldn't afford for me to run a car anyway.

I'd rather people like you, OP, consider me to be selfish than to risk a hand spasm while driving and kill myself and others when he car suddenly lurched out of control as a result.

Second part I guess is if you don't drive, do you expect others to accommodate you or make allowances for you solely on the basis of not driving?

Depends what you mean by 'accommodate', I suppose.

Do you expect society in general to accommodate and make allowances for you as a driver? Do you expect car parking spaces at places you're likely to go?l, for example? Roads designed to take as much car traffic as possible so drivers grumble less about being "stuck in traffic"? Road maintenance costing far more than it would if everyone walked, cycled or got public transport? Air pollution at damaging levels in many of our towns and cities? Nope?

I shouldn't say I get annoyed at being offered a lift actually. If they accept a 'no thanks' then it's not annoying at all. But all the 'are you sure?' 'where are you going?' 'it'll take you forever walking' etc is annoying. I'm not going to collapse from exhaustion because I walk somewhere an hour a way!

Your colleague is a PITA, and would be even if she did drive.
A parent not being able to drive is no reason for an appeals committee to allow an appeal, so even if she won the appeal that wouldn't be why even if that is the reason she gives.
And if she drove she would still be late for work and blame roadworks or whatever - rather than admitting she needed to leave earlier.

Not every non driver is a PITA.

I don't drive because I don't want to. Valid enough 'excuse' in my opinion.

I don't expect anything from others - other than public transport is clean, safe and turns up on time.

It's a better excuse than that of my ex-friend. She could drive perfectly well, and did so for years, but then developed a phobia of bridges and elevated sections of road that meant she could only do journeys where she was absolutely certain that there weren't any of the above. She then moved to somewhere where it was impossible to go further than the town centre because of her "phobia".

This meant that I was always the driver whenever we went anywhere, which was very handy as it meant that her second career as a functioning alcoholic was unhindered by the need to drive.

Funnily enough, when we came back from a trip to Yorkshire, I insisted on coming over the bridge at Dartford because there were road works on the M25 if we went the other way. Her phobia appeared not to exist that day, which was surprising given how high and steep that bridge is.

I've been driving for 25 years but totally agree with the lazy arse comments. My DS gets walked home the half mile from school every day and gets walked there every morning except the ones where I have to drop and get to work (3 mornings a fortnight as DH's shifts mean he can't take him), where I then park half a mile from the office rather than pay to park right outside the doorstep.

So many people from the same street as me can be seen trying to park next to the school gates and we usually get home before them as they're queuing to turn right out of the end of the street. There's even one in the next street (even closer to the school) that doesn't drive and gets her retired aunt to do a 6 mile round trip every morning/afternoon to take the kids for her (she goes in the car with her). These are people I know personally and know they have no reason not to do the school run on foot.

I did slip into the habit of doing the school run in the car, but got a wake up call one morning when, as I was walking back from doing it on foot, someone actually asked me if my car was in the garage being repaired, and offered me a lift (from about 200 yards away from my house!)

I passed my test at 18 but it took a lot of lessons and I was always very nervous during my lessons. I really didn't take to driving the way some people do.

Then a few weeks after my test I was driving to a friend's house and I was in an almost head-on collision with someone speeding up the wrong ride of the road in a stolen car. I escaped with just some cuts and bruises thanks to my parents just having bought me a new car with some very good airbags. If I'd still been in the old banger I was driving around before my test then I have no doubt I'd be dead now. My lovely shiny new car was completely written off.

I tried to get back into driving after that and not let it affect me, but I was always far too nervous and suffering from awful flashbacks. So although I have a license, I haven't driven for about 15 years now.

Is that a good enough 'excuse' for you?

I don't ask people for lifts. I manage just fine with public transport and my own two feet. Sometimes I even find it annoying when friends insist on driving somewhere that we could just as easily reach by public transport - if not even more easily. And then they act like a martyr because they had to drive.

Driving does not make you better than anyone else.

I don't drive as my eyesight is not good enough as I was born with a genetic eye condition which has deteriated my optic nerve. I still have lots of useful eyesight and ALWAYS get people saying 'oh but surely you can see well enough to drive, you're not blind are you??'

I can't see well enough. No I can't have laser eye surgery. No I can't get better glasses. There are loads of medical reasons that make driving impossible for some, not all of them obvious.

A valid excuse for what?

I don't expect anyone to 'accommodate or make allowances' for the fact I'm on medication and I'm not allowed to drive. Luckily, my family and friends aren't judgey.

Op I get this with family - we all live within an hour of each other in a city with good public transport yet nobody ever comes to visit us because they don't drive and we do

I would like an excuse from every able-bodied driver who drives distances any reasonable person would walk, or the ones who complain about parking when they could bus there instead.

I drive into town, even though it's only 2 miles. To go by bus would cost £3.20 return as opposed to about 20p's worth of petrol, and although I could walk one way, I couldn't lug shopping back because of the weight, plus the last mile of that 2 miles involves a 300' climb up a bloody steep hill.

On the rare occasions that I'm in the office all day, I walk there and back, but then I have nothing to carry apart from my handbag and chromebook. The 300' climb is still a killer though!

Most of my kids don't drive because, as a single mother, I couldn't afford lessons for them, to put them on my insurance for them to practice, or to buy them a car if they did pass their tests or to put them on the insurance of my (very old) car.

Increasingly, the less well off are being priced out of driving. I drive an ancient diesel engined car. I can't afford to replace it, so any 'scrappage schemes' are a complete waste of time.

Whoops. Soapbox time (actually, if I drove a soapbox, I'd be fine...)

I don't drive because I can't afford lessons. I don't expect anyone to run around after me, or give lifts, but I do appreciate people being lenient and allowing me extra time to negotiate public transport/walk.
When lifts are offered I am almost embarrassingly grateful.

Your colleague is using the not driving as a poor excuse to get out of doing stuff she would rather not have to do. If she did drive, she would be finding some other stupid reason why she couldn't work Sunday's and Bank Holidays..........she is able to do this because you,
other colleagues and the management are allowing it.
Entitled, selfish people exist everywhere. Some of them can't or don't drive, but that has no relevance whatsoever.

why should non drivers not have to work weekends or awkward shifts on the basis that they can't due to public transport

Why should some working parents not have to work Christmas because they have children?

As a single person working two jobs at one point, I had to work plenty of awkward shifts and every weekend due to people wanting time off with their families or whatever - it was my responsibility to find my way there on time.

But I didn't whinge that I had to 'make allowances' for people