To wonder why people 'don't drive'

[ZX81user]

..medical conditions aside.It is such a useful life skill.
I think it is part of a parent's responsibility to get their teen througj their test.

How do you go do a big shop if you don't have a car, how do you visit family that live miles away, how do you get somewhere in an emergency, what if schools aren't within walking distance?

1. I do all my food shopping online and tbh I fail to see why everyone doesn't do this - so much more convenient. But I also do have a shopping trolley I could easily use.

2. All my family live nearby. When we do visits further afield we mostly use public transport. Sometimes DH drives but only if he absolutely has to.

3)In an emergency I use cabs.

4)I live in London. There are about seven schools within a ten minute walk from my flat.

So when people just say well I like in London were not talking about living in blinking Chelsea here

I live in Lewisham. I do not need a car.

Where is the op? I'm still waiting on them to answer my question.

So howdo you ever go away for a weekend to a holiday cottage for example? Or a holiday park (if that's what you are into) where you need transport to get about.
How do you move stuff about if you can't hire a van?

@Metoodear but I don't live in Ruislip. I live in zone 2. I used to have a car and I sold it because I never used it

You're making a blanket statement that everyone must drive because it's hugely limiting and they're taking the piss and asking for lifts

I can only speak for my own experience. I live 10 mins walk from 2 tube stations. I'm on lots of bus routes. You can get a LOT of ubers for the cost of running a car

If I have a pressing need for a car, I'm surrounded by zipcar spaces, I just book one using my phone. In the years I've had membership I've never once used it - because I don't need a car in central London

I know a lot of drivers who cadge lifts off other drivers. I can't think of one occasion when I've asked anyone for a lift - people offer me them all the time and I just say I prefer to make my own way. Please don't assume people are selfish based on whether they can drive or not.

Hounslow you don’t need a car

I think because that’s how you live and it works for your needs you’re not really understanding that others may not have all those needs you do or choose not go strawberry picking

to get from Uxbridge to Acton on the bus could take well over an hour

Or you could take the Piccadilly line for about half an hour.

Anyway yes, once you get into zone 4 and beyond then a car would be helpful. But as I said earlier, I live in zone 2. Not "blinking Chelsea" but still well connected for public transport.

So howdo you ever go away for a weekend to a holiday cottage for example? Or a holiday park (if that's what you are into) where you need transport to get about

Public transport I imagine

How do you move stuff about if you can't hire a van?

Pay for a service.

Crikey OP surely that’s not difficult to work out

Can't afford to, simple as that.

Daft question , frankly.

Presumably all these non-drivers live in towns or cities or suburbs where there are good transport links. I’ve always lived rurally. Couldn’t be without a car, especially now the kids are older and have after school hobbies and sports in the next town over. Our village has a bus once every two hours, I think.

I wonder if people that are dependent on public transport have made their life choices with that in mind? So work, school, hobbies etc are all within reach because of good transport links. If they’d had access to a car would their life be different anyway? Very interesting.

I live in zone 5 and don't need a car. I can drive but don't need to.

I wonder if people that are dependent on public transport have made their life choices with that in mind? So work, school, hobbies etc are all within reach because of good transport links. If they’d had access to a car would their life be different anyway? Very interesting.

I grew up in suburbia where I was dependent on being ferried around by my parents. I wouldn't ever want to inflict that on a teenager - my friends' teens have an Oyster card and uber and they have freedom from a much younger age. I couldn't do anything without my parents driving me around, until I was 17. My experience of being dependent on a car made me want to live in a city where I wouldn't have to be

I mean doesn’t everyone’s circumstances affect their life choices?

JacquesHammer Yes you always have poor sods on Facebook saying

Need .......picked up willing to pay

Or will you deliver said trampoline or sofa willing to pay to witch the answer is usually know

I wouldn't live rurally even if I could drive to be honest. I don't like it, too dull.

Was discussing this very topic with dp today. He grew up in a middle of nowhere village. I grew up in the big city of our area. Everyone he knew learnt very early on. I still know a lot of people who can't / can't but don't / haven't learnt at all. He was remarking today that when he met a mutual friend of ours aged about 30, he was the first man he had ever met who couldn't drive, and he was genuinely shocked. I was responding that I couldn't remember anyone from my own circle ever having much interest in it. As the years have gone on, some have learnt and others not. Those who still live centrally and are paying high rents / mortgages for the privilege of being close to everything generally haven't bothered. There is nothing inherently right or wrong about driving or not driving, coming as it does down to personal preferences and choices about how to spend one's own money.

@ZX81user, open your mind. If this is the first time it's become apparent to you that not everyone has experienced life in the exact way that you have, then an awareness of that might be a overdue. Ask yourself what made driving so important in your view. Consider how those factors may have been different for others!

And for all the drivers whining about giving lifts, just don't offer if you don't want to and decline if someone asks!

MiddleClassProblem Unless you just want to stay in howslow you do

I’m laughing at needing a car in Hounslow. No one I know who lives/d in Hounslow ever had a car. The Heathrow Piccadilly line is so regular that driving would take longer. I used to live in Brentford and got the overland train to Vauxhall everyday. Even when exH and I had a car (living in Selhurst) we only used it 4 times a year to visit his family in the north.

Don't really understand why people are bringing up "if you lived in a village/have family living miles away/kids at different schools you'd HAVE to drive." Most of us non drivers who have posted here including myself don't have that. I don't intend to move to a village or have kids in different schools so that's not relevant to my life.

Piccadilly line, train, 24 hr busses... I live near there and get around just fine...

You are so angry about it and incorrect! Just because you can’t cope with it (and clearly someone in your life bothers you with it too) doesn’t mean the rest of us have the same issues.

Yes you always have poor sods on Facebook saying

YOU might do. We have a lovely community group that has both paid for and free services.

BF hires a “man with van” service for any moving jobs although they’re few and far between anyway.

This thread has made me feel a bit better about not driving, at 36. I've taken & failed my test 4 times and can't afford to keep flogging a dead horse at the moment. I have a 1 year old and in many ways life would be much easier if I could drive, but I can't. I beat myself up about it daily. But what can you do if you just can't do something? Luckily my husband can & does drive and it's certainly true, for me at least, that you build your life around not driving in some ways. When we bought our first home 6 months ago it was very much with public transport links and amenities within walking distance in mind.
The positives of not driving are that I get way more exercise & fresh air than I would otherwise. Driving definitely makes a lot of people lazy, to the point where a 20 minute walk is considered too long.

I never needed a car till I moved quite far out of London. I never needed one living within the M25 as public transport was good and I like walking. I’m now in the Home Counties and find that, ok don’t need a car to live per se, but it definitely became a priority. So I learnt and bought a car.

And if you live rurally the. It must be like a prison sentence

Living rurally would be a prison sentence full stop with or without a car - shoot me now!!