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?

I could spend £25-30 per lesson so that I may pass in a few years time, then buy a car, insurance etc, then have nowhere to park where I live, then drive to the next city to work (7 miles but in rush hour traffic so any time up to an hour), park miles away from the office, and pay a fortune for the privilege

OR

I could walk to the train station five minutes away, take an eight minute train ride and a ten minute walk from the station to the office. 🤔

There are plenty of people around who don't drive. I find it very strange to be honest. I was encouraged to take driving lessons and pass my test at 17 and ds will be doing the same. It is a necessary life skill nearly on a par with swimming if you ask me. A kind of rite of passage for a teenager.

There are also a lot of people around who expect endless lifts and to be carried everywhere and I find this annoying in the extreme.

I'm going to learn to drive soon, but I can only afford to with my parents very kind financial backing. Last time I tried learning as a teen I mixed up accelerator and brake and crashed the car into their house and lost my nerve completely.

I have lovely friends who have taken stuff to the tip for me (I am always happy to babysit or whatever, so not a leech) and take night buses into account when arranging to go to the pub with me. I look forward to helping out with lifts and designated driver stuff and actually getting a full weekly shop instead of going little and often.

So the driving is irrelevant.

a selfish person, who is just take-take-take is indeed very hard work. Family, in-law or friend?

I don't drive because I have a MH illness which I was advised needed to tell DVLA about as not able to drive with it and the meds I'm on.

Generally speaking outside large cities you are a bit snookered without a vehicle.

So your issue and your AIBU
should have been about her, not assuming that those who don't drive expect others to run round after them

I don't drive as my dyspraxia also means 'I am not very good at it'. I never rely on lifts, getting buses, trams and trains. I am very rarely if ever late and I took my son to school on two buses when he was younger meaning to get him to school and me to work I was taking eight buses a day. I don't see your problem, car drivers moan about all sorts insurance, parking fees, speeding tickets etc

'if people don't drive through choice

what do you mean through choice? they have a licence and a car but they choose not to take it because they want to drink?
They don't have a licence or can't use it, and haven't told you the reasons so you are just assuming and judging?

truly, you sound a charm. If you don't want to give someone a lift because it's not convenient, just say no. No point insulting random strangers on the internet.

It does annoy me when people use not driving as an excuse. I've had coworkers claim they can't work Sundays or try to get out of bank holidays citing driving

But how can they get there in time for work if no public transport? My daughter has the same issue.

Your colleague does sound U.

I don't drive because I don't want to. I don't think I'd like it. So I live in London, I make sure that whenever I'm going somewhere I can do it by public transport / taxis and if someone offers me a lift somewhere I reciprocate with petrol money, coffees etc.

I live in a town centre and I can't afford a car. If one of you rich ladies with a rich husband would like to pay for all car related costs then I can crack on.....

Well perhaps you should have made that clearer in your initial post, OP!

I drive but don't particularly like it and am very happy to walk or take public transport locally. I know a couple of people who don't drive but their partners do.

No chip on my shoulder about non-drivers at all! Was curious as to the reasons and also wondered what was normal in terms of people getting themselves about independently if they choose not to drive.

Polly I was offered lessons at 17 but refused them

I also can't swim, despite years of lessons at school

And yet I live independently - who knew?

If people aren't asking you constantly for lifts, why are you bothered?

"The exact scenario - colleague doesn't drive through her own admission she can't be bothered rather than cost/medical/trauma of any kind. Yet she moans relentlessly about being disadvantaged through not being a driver and I wondered whether it was just her being a twat or more people thought like that... examples include not making work on time as taxi was late, appealing school admission solely on 'not being a driver' and so on..."

So she is not actually asking you to do something: she is just having a rant?

Tell me, don't you know anyone who moans about being late because their own car got stuck in a traffic jam? Not a single person who ever moans about something to do with their own driving?

I suspect you do, and that you simply let that wash over you because you think drivers have a right to their problems and non-drivers don't.

Also suspect that your colleague is simply a moany person but that you focus on the non-driving aspect of her moaning because you think it is morally wrong not to drive. If she was a driver and moaned about that you would simply write her down as a moaner and ignore the transport question altogether.

x-ed with OP's last.

Transport issues are never a winning argument at school appeal (unless there are eg mobility issues)

And anyone can be late for work, whether they are in a taxi or their own car.

Is she just one of those people who likes having a moan?

I have anxiety, I had a few lessons and I was constantly in a state of panic thinking I was going to run someone over. Imagine what I would be like if I did manage to pass then found myself in a situation where I just completely panicked and hurt people, I would never be able to live with myself.

I think the other issues like cost and there are too many cars in the world help solidify my opinion that I don't want to drive.

I don't rely on other people to drive me places, I either walk or use public transport unless someone really insists that they want to drive me, often though I think they feel like they have to offer so I try to leave before they do so.

At my old work place I had a colleague who always offered me a lift home and wouldn't take no for an answer but when she was driving me home I felt like she resented it, so towards the end of the day I found myself avoiding her and rushing out the gates before she could speak to me. I cringe looking back, I should have been assertive and had an honest conversation.

If I had a penny for every colleague who comes in and complains about traffic jams and the car breaking down and having to buy a new car and the MOT and all the rest of it...

When it snows around here, it's the drivers who don't make it into work, even if they live just as close or closer, because they simply can't contemplate walking or taking the bus. But somehow that doesn't count as "not being independent".

There is a difference between "can't drive" and "don't drive". I can't drive, as like PPs, I tried but wasn't very good at it.

However, even if I could, I wouldn't, for lots of reasons. We can't afford two cars, I don't go out much so even if we could afford two cars, it would be wasteful having one just sitting there most of the time. We live a five minute walk from the town centre, we have reasonable public transport, I'm now disabled so wouldn't be able to drive even if all the other things didn't apply.

If someone expects me to do something for them that I can't get to, then yes I would expect a lift. If I want to go somewhere, I might ask for a lift, but I wouldn't expect it. More likely I'd go on the bus. My friends have always offered anyway because they don't judge me solely on my ability to operate a vehicle, thankfully.

Perhaps she's complaining because at current state of technology it is environmentally irresponsible to force a situation where everyone 'has to' drive cars everywhere? It is a huge waste of resources especially considering that most of the time it is merely one person that is being hauled around. It is perfectly valid to criticise the way in which the car is pushed in Britain over public transport. Most people never bother to think that there could possibly be an alternative thanks to the primacy of cars so maybe she's just trying to put forward other points of view. I don't know your colleague obvs.

I'm really struggling to see how swimming is an 'essential life skill' for someone like me who never goes on holiday and never goes to a swimming pool

She is a moaner but the taxi example is almost like she's allowed to be late because she's not able to be independent (like we can all avoid traffic )

Like I say, curious as to the reasons more than anything. AIBU was the wrong place!

I actually think it's a shame that driving is seen so much as the default that it's being described as a necessary life skill and that one needs to have a valid reason not to do it.

The road network here in the South East is a nightmare of congestion. Pollution levels are far too high in most cities and towns. It kills and seriously injures thousands every year.
This needs to change. I think it will change, in future.