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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder why people 'don't drive'

974 replies

ZX81user · 06/05/2018 13:07

..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.

OP posts:
savingin2018welltryingto · 08/05/2018 17:11

Cory, I don't mean places with a road - I mean, how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks or the lakes or just about anyway, you'd be very limited as to where and what you could do.

bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 17:18

you never see them come onto a thread and say ''well yes, I do expect my sister to drive me back to London every weekend'

I've refused offers of a lift back to London when I've been up north visiting family, because it's so so much quicker to get back by train than by car. Plus I don't have to make polite conversation, can just listen to a podcast, read a book and go to the loo whenever I want! I really, really don't want a lift, thank you very much. Drivers seem to think the car option must be better by virtue of it being by car...

or 'well I suppose my sibling does have to drive mum to all her hospital appointments and take time off work, because I can't drive'.

My father lives the other end of the country

I did take time off work to travel 200 miles to visit him when he needed some hospital treatment - but went by train. I have a licence but am not insured to drive his company car, so we got a taxi to and from hospital. Very easy. My brother lives in another country so he's not much use!!

What impact does me not driving have on anyone else's life? I live in bloody London, I used to have a car, but I sold it because the only time I drove it was to whizz around the block to stop it getting a flat battery!

geekymommy · 08/05/2018 17:40

Non-drivers generally do not kill over a thousand people a year. Drivers do.

Some people just aren't able to drive well enough to do so safely. The reasons for that might be physical or mental. Some people can't see well enough to drive, some people are very anxious about driving. Obviously, people who want to drink should not be driving afterward.

Some people don't have cars. Cars aren't cheap. They cost money to buy, they cost money to insure, they cost money to fuel and maintain, and in some places they cost money to park.

I find it stressful to look for parking in places where it's difficult to find. Here in the US at least, places where it's difficult to find parking are often places where walking is an option. If the weather is good and I don't have to transport anything heavy, I'd rather walk and not deal with the stress of trying to find parking. I do drive, but I like having the option of not doing so. When I visit your country, I don't trust myself to not drive on the "wrong" side of the road, so I don't drive there. (I also think most of your rental cars are stick shift, and I can't drive stick) Those of you who I didn't run over the last time I was there, you're welcome.

Walking is good exercise, and driving is not. I'd much rather walk to some shops than go to the gym.

I'm not much of an outdoors or countryside type. I'd rather walk around in a city, ideally one with coffee shops and book shops. That means driving to places in the middle of nowhere isn't really an issue, because I generally don't want to do that anyway.

Gottagetmoving · 08/05/2018 17:44

I used to drive, I don't now
There are too many idiots on the road, never using indicators, using the wrong lanes, getting aggressive and using mobile phones when driving.
I can't afford a car now.
Unlike lots of drivers I know, I walk more and keep fit because I walk to lose cal shops instead of jumping into a car for a 5 minute journey.

Gottagetmoving · 08/05/2018 17:45

Local shops!

Borisdaspide · 08/05/2018 17:53

I mean, how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks or the lakes or just about anyway, you'd be very limited as to where and what you could do.

Train, bike, bus, walk? The keenest hikers I know, the sort who love clinging off the side of mountains, can't drive.

GorgonLondon · 08/05/2018 18:08

I mean, how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks

I think you mean 'why' rather than 'how'.

corythatwas · 08/05/2018 18:09

"Cory, I don't mean places with a road - I mean, how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks or the lakes or just about anyway, you'd be very limited as to where and what you could do."

That's how dh and I did in the north of Sweden (where there aren't many roads anyway), that's what we did along the Offa's Dyke Path (train to Chepstow and train at the other end), that's what we did in the north of Spain. Went as close as we could by train or bus, and then walked.

The Lakes are dead easy: there are trains to Windermere and Oxenholme, and a bus service to Ambleside, Windermere, Coniston and Keswick. As for public transport to the Peak District, these are some options: www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/visiting/publictransport

There's this handy invention called Google that enables you to find out about them.

BitchQueen90 · 08/05/2018 18:11

Gorgon Grin

Rather poke my own eyes out than go camping. I live near the peaks and I can get a bus or train there and stay in a lovely B&B. I did just that last year.

geekymommy · 08/05/2018 18:15

I attract bears and thunderstorms if I go camping. Even though bears have been extinct in the UK for around a thousand years, I still think I'd manage to attract them. Here in the US, we do have bears, and they are a problem for camping in some places.

bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 18:19

Not owning a car means I can avoid going camping, hurrah!!

That sounds like my idea of hell too

I'll be in the lovely boutique B&B as well, leave you drivers to your camping Grin

(I suspect the non drivers are the town mice vs the driving country mice - all the 'what abouts' to do with rural exploits, are really not a bother to me because I try to avoid spending time in the countryside!)

NotAgainYoda · 08/05/2018 18:22

I think someone needs to start a thread entitled :

I wonder why people 'don't go camping'

NotAgainYoda · 08/05/2018 18:24

cory

It's almost as if people are different, right? Grin

EmpressOfSpartacus · 08/05/2018 18:25

how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks or the lakes

Why on earth would I want to head off camping?

Walking holiday with a rucksack & strategically placed B&Bs, I'm seriously considering that at some point. But if I don't have a bed & someone else doing the cooking I'm not interested.

EmpressOfSpartacus · 08/05/2018 18:26

Ah, major cross post Grin

Gottagetmoving · 08/05/2018 18:28

I think someone needs to start a thread entitled:I wonder why people 'don't go camping

Grin
GorgonLondon · 08/05/2018 18:31

Hello all like-minded non-camping non-drivers Grin

Have had many brilliant holidays with my kids where we travelled around various European countries by train (incl Italy, Spain, and France).

My husband can drive, and occasionally has done on holiday, but we all have a far better time if we go by public transport. The journey is then enjoyable for all of us, and no stress of navigating, parking, traffic laws, cost of car hire, worrying about damaging the car, etc etc.

Plus it's usually quite interesting to get your head round a new public transport system, and you often get to talk to people and find out new things.

Occasionally we get a taxi either for station/airport pick ups or sometimes for a whole day, to take us to sites outside the city that are not accessible by public transport. This often has a bonus that the driver usually knows the area pretty well and can take you to sites you wouldn't have known about otherwise.

In the UK, we ONCE drove from London to Kent and it took 8 hours! (the Dartford Crossing was shut). The next time we got the train and it was less than 2 hours from Kings Cross.

I find the dependence on cars to be quite weird and disturbing tbh.

bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 18:34

Group outing! We can hire a coach to take us to the B&B from the train station, and have a nice dinner together while the campers are sitting in their cars to keep dry from the rain Grin

EmpressOfSpartacus · 08/05/2018 18:35

Bananafish Grin

corythatwas · 08/05/2018 18:44

The absolutely best holiday I've ever had was as a 13yo travelling down from Sweden to Athens on the train with my parents + 2 younger siblings and then spending 3 weeks going around Greece on public transport. Didn't miss any of the main sights- Olympia, Delphi, Ithaca, Mycene, Sparta. It was magic.

happypoobum · 08/05/2018 19:07

Dear God I would rather chew my own arm off than go camping.

JacquesHammer · 08/05/2018 19:09

I mean, how would you head off camping for a week in the peaks or the lakes

Well I drive and I wouldn’t do that Grin

CuntinuousMingeprovement · 08/05/2018 19:29

I would be going camping for a week over my dead body. Thus, if it ever happens, how to get there without the ability to drive a car will be the absolute least of my problems.

Andrewofgg · 08/05/2018 19:46

I know the Carry On films are out of fashion but I remember the end of Carry on Camping.

Ted27 · 08/05/2018 19:47

savingin2018 I'm interested in your statement

I don't mean places with a road - how would you .....

Don't cars need roads? Has is not occurred to you that the most 'off the beaten track' places are not accessible by road, and therefore perfect for walkers.
This is the UK, nowwhere is that remote - I don't mean that in terms of day to day living -the daily grind of trying to get to work, school, shops, but for holidays when there is no time pressure and maybe the journey is part of the holiday.
By walking, taking a bus or a train. I'm far more likely to see things than someone bombing about in a car.

In August I will be taking my son to the places I went to as a child in North Wales by car. We will get on a train in Birmingham, I will have a large chai latte, a bag of minstrels and the books I had for Christmas which I won't have time to read until then. I will have a very pleasant hour or so until we get to Wales when I will enjoy the scenary. I may even go so far as to engage my son in casual conversation and bore him with my childhood memories. We will get off the train at Talybont and walk two minutes to our B&B. The next two days we will take the local trains for 10 minutes journeys to Harlech and Barmouth.
On the third day we head off to Conwy, we have to change train lines. So we will go to Porthmadog and board the narrow guage steam railway which I travelled on many times with my grandad. This will take us to Ffestinniog where we will vist the slate mines and pick up the line to Conwy.
Job done, same holiday, no car.

I do not want to go camping
I do not need regular trips to the tip
I can see Ikea from my house and there is a taxi rank outside
I can walk to a multi screen cinema and two theatres in 10 minutes
My son walks to his activities and cycles to school
I can walk to Sainsburys in 15 minutes
My office is 10 minutes walk away
I don't want to join thousands of other people stuck on motorways or overcrowded beaches at the first sight of sun

If I could not do these things then I would drive, but I can so I don't. I have no problem with anyone who cannot do these things driving

Why is that so incomprehensible?

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