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.

Surely if it's an emergency and you need to get to A&E quickly you'd call an ambulance?

Exactly. In a true emergency, you'd be better with an ambulance with paramedics and live-saving equipment as they can start treating straight away.

I have a fair idea why one chose not to!

Friend of a friend, 6 kids, plenty of money, so cost of running a car wasn't the question.
She would sit there, all serene with a glass of wine, while her friends charged around taking/collecting her kids as well as their own, from sundry activities - so often in the rush hour.
As my friend put it - 'She's the clever one - we're the mugs.'

Lakie
I don't believe that you can get to Gatwick airport easily but nowhere else

And if you're driving to A&E in an emergency you risk being caught in traffic! Why would you do that rather than call an ambulance?

How weird that the people are justifying having a car so they can go to the top of all places

I don't need to justify having a car. I've been an essential car user for work purposes since 1989, that's why I started running a car and I lived in London then.

I was just wondering what impact it would have on my non-working life I didn't drive, and the trips to the tip were the first thing I thought of that couldn't be done by taxi, public transport or online.

And if you're driving to A&E in an emergency you risk being caught in traffic! Why would you do that rather than call an ambulance?
And why would you call an ambulance and risk waiting ages for one to turn up when you could have just driven there?
And you would have no transport back from the hospital if you didn't take your car.

. But I suppose I get annoyed with people who don’t drive but expect others to take care of them like they are children. It happens quite regularly

I would assume their helplessness and entitlement is a personality trait, rather than inability to drive.

Lakie I’ve recently moved from a council with a crap recycling collection back to London where it’s brilliant. I wonder if london boroughs put extra money in because more people don’t drive but then my parents are rural and have a really good collection too so it’s must be that there are a few that are just plain old crap which means some people will be less likely to recycle recyclable things car or no car.

insancerre There are towns with stations on the train line between us and MIL's nearest station but they're frankly not much better than Gatwick airport in terms of places to have lunch and spend an afternoon chatting. It's near as dammit the halfway point, too.

Tamsin82 buses/taxis serve hospitals here.

And why would you call an ambulance and risk waiting ages for one to turn up when you could have just driven there?

The nightmare of trying to park when you get there. I don't think you can drive up to the doors of the hospital as that's for ambulances only. The cost of parking.

Tamsin as explained loads of times, you'd get public transport home. I got the bus to and from the hospital when I had a breast screening a few months ago. And it's not always safe to drive in an emergency especially if it involved moving the injured party and possibly causing more damage. I'd rather let professionals deal with it.

Environment - a moot point if you’re having all your shopping delivered!

I am pretty sure Tesco isn't sending out a van just for my weekly shop. They are delivering to many households with the one van.

And why would you call an ambulance and risk waiting ages for one to turn up when you could have just driven there?
And you would have no transport back from the hospital if you didn't take your car.

Where are you going to park when there's no parking at the hospitals where you live?

If you drive to A&E with a sick family member, are you just going to dump them out on their own while you drive around for half an hour trying to find a metered space somewhere?

When I got taken to hospital by ambulance after a bad epileptic seizure, we got a cab home after I was discharged. Took 1 min for one to arrive when we ordered one via the app.

Middle one of the neighbouring councils to us provides far, far better services in every respect than ours, despite being much more sparsely populated. They had doorstep recycling several years before our council did, and our council only just met the deadline for introduction.

Our lot are only just moving from a recycling system of Byzantine complexity to one where it all goes in one wheelie bin, and only now can we recycle stuff like aerosols and yogurt pots.

Tbh, I think the whole 2-tier system of local government is crazy anyway. We should have just one council that does everything, like in metropolitan areas. After all, it works fine in Cornwall.

Even amongst drivers, there are certain things some won't do. Should they be taken to task about the benefits of motorways?

Each to their own, I say!

Eight million British motorists avoid motorway driving

www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/639887/Eight-million-British-motorists-avoid-motorway-driving

If I need to get to A & E quickly but it's not an ambulance case I'd rather call a taxi. Safer than driving myself if I'm ill and with the additional advantage of having another adult in the car who can call that ambulance if I suddenly conk out. I had plenty of rushed taxi trips to hospital during my two complication-filled pregnancies and was greatly comforted by the cheerful and supportive drivers who assured me that they'd be happy to deliver the baby if need be. Before the days when you could pay with your card, I always kept a sum in a drawer enough to take me to the nearest hospital by taxi. Obviously not a solution if you live on a Hebridean island or something, but works fine for Hampshire.

Am trying to remember what we did about the tip before dh got his licence- I think we basically had a lifestyle where we didn't throw very much away, most garden waste we composted, things like old fridges you can often get taken away by the people who sell you your new fridge, you can often avoid packaging. Before recycling collection, dh used to collect bottles to take into town when he went to work: most towns do have a recycling bin somewhere. Jam jars and things we reused ourselves. For larger things, we did what Gubbins said: waited until there was a critical mass and got a skip.

As for children's activities, they were just told that they had to limit themselves to things that were available within walking/public transport distance. The only difficulty here were friends' parents who insisted teen dd had to have a lift home rather than take the perfectly acceptable bus and then felt hard-done-by when we couldn't offer lifts in return. But I really don't feel responsible for that: they knew she was fine without the lift.

I didn't bother learning til I moved out of a city and into the depths of the South West countryside where there is one bus a week (it's on a Thursday morning and is a "special service" that you have to phone and book) and even though we live next to the main Waterloo-Exeter line there isn't a station for 6 miles in either direction.

Driving became pretty important very quickly.

I can completely see however that I wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't moved from a city. Train, bus, walk, I had everything I needed within easy reach.

Tamsin as explained loads of times, you'd get public transport home. I got the bus to and from the hospital when I had a breast screening a few months ago.

Again, that's not always feasible outside of urban areas. To get to the nearest hospital for me is bus/long walk, then train, then another bus. Because of some vagary of CCG funding, a lot of surgery and most OP appointments are at a hospital on the outskirts of another town, further away. There are 4 buses a day between here and there, and it's £7 return, £9.50 if you have to get the first bus, as it's before 9.30.

When I first moved here, I was shocked when I found out that the local hospital only did minor injuries, day surgery and rehab, and that for anything else you had to travel at least 10 miles. In London, I'd never lived more than a couple of miles from an A&E department.

I enjoy walks on beaches and hikes in the countryside. I know buses go to some places but I’d feel I was really missing out if I was limited to them. I love piling buckets,blankets, books and picnics into the boot and spending all day in the beach. Even when I lived in the city I did this.

Lakie, we get that it's not always feasible.

But the thread is not "how come absolutely everybody doesn't live without a car?" Everybody gets that.

The thread was started by an OP wondering why everybody doesn't drive as according to her it is a necessary life skill for everyone.

And people are here to explain that for lots of us, not just Londoners, it isn't a necessary life skill.
(Also, that there are plenty of circumstances where you wouldn't be able to drive anyway: the emergency trip to A & E seems a prime example, assuming that you are the patient.)

I don't give a toss whether anyone does or not - as long as the non drivers don't constantly expect friends who do, to provide a free taxi service.

And as a pp said, if you can't, say 'can't', not 'don't' - which implies that you can but choose not to. Which is fine - unless you make a habit of bumming lifts.

Ted27
You need to share your tips on getting such fantastic travel deals. Sounds great!

In the case of STBX, because you have a live-in mug who does all the driving, short-distance, long-distance. No muss no fuss.

Bonus: you can whinge about how your money paid for the car, but she can have it in the divorce.

Not projecting my own isshooz at all, me.... No no no no no no.....

It seems to me reading the OP and other drivers responses, that their issue is not really that they want every adult to be a driver, but that they are fed up with non-drivers expecting to be ferried around by them.
In which case stop being mugged off - NO is a complete sentence! A reasonable person who doesn't drive does not expect a free taxi service from friends, family or colleagues. A CF needs to be stood up to and told to jog on with their cf-ery.