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.

Aww bless Walking . Of course you don't. Here, have a lovely song to cheer you up:

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars
Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars
Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door
In cars
Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars
In cars, in cars, in cars
In my car, in my car, in my car, in my car
In cars, in cars
In my car, in my car, in my car, in my car
(I've been sittin', I've been sittin', I've been sittin', I've been sittin')
In cars, in cars
In my car, in my car, in my car, in my car
(I've been…

Unless you count taxi drivers outofsync.

Interesting that that's the point you make, rather than engaging with the environmental issues though. I'd still be right about the impact cars have on air quality even if I spent every waking moment begging passing car drivers to let me in and take me with them.

Driving, when needed, and accepting the impact that your driving is having on others whilst not pretending that non-drivers asking you to do things you don't want is more important than the detrimental impact that driving has on the planet and the health of other people.

Where did I say that non drivers being cheeky fucks was more important than the impact cars have on the planet? I don't remember saying that at all. If you can show me where I said it then fair play.

I have asthma. It gets worse when I'm in busy congested places than when I'm in the countryside. I still think that driving is a basic essential adult skill and it's bizarre when people don't bother to acquire it, even if they don't then choose to run a car straight away (finances, and incapability aside)z

I don't live in the sticks, just a small town, but i worked out on the last thread that i'd need another 4 hours in my day to fit in what i do now, using public transport. It just wouldn't be possible!

Where I live in London it takes me way longer to get to most places by car. It took me 35 minutes to take DS to my mum's on the train and tube the other day. The same journey by car the previous week took an hour.

I still think that driving is a basic essential adult skill and it's bizarre when people don't bother to acquire it

Yes, so you've said several times, despite the fact that tens of people on here have said clearly that we manage to 'adult' perfectly well without driving, and without living a particularly 'bizarre' life.

Don't worry, no one is going to take your little metal cocoon away. But it would be just fab if you could refrain from tarring the rest of us with a range of brushes from 'cheeky fucker' to 'naive' just because we manage to work, live, travel and raise children without one.

I didn't say you did walking, although the fact that you've spent more time talking about cheeky fucker mates than the environment is interesting. If you consider the environment to be of greater importance it might be an idea to mention that. But in any case, you asked in general, no? There's your answer.

You're entitled to be asthmatic and to fail to understand why people wouldn't spend time and money on what is not a basic adult skill which they may not wish to use, if you want. That's your call.

OutOfSyncGirl

CM - so I assume you never ask drivers to give you a lift?

I don't know why some MNers ask these questions. It's like you think we get up each morning with the sole desire of making as many awkward requests of other people as possible.

You just take it for granted life is only possible with a car, and that any non-driver is only managing life through using someone else's, don't you?

I honestly don't know how non-drivers fit everything in

If their life is anything like mine (pretty standard: use the car to get to and from different work sites, to visit friends and relatives in other cities, to drive to and from other places to attend events), they simply do less or it takes much more time.

To get to see a friend of mind who is housebound in another city, it takes me 50 minutes by car, and three hours by public transport. Once I'm there, if I wanted to see anybody else or do something else, a twenty minute drive would take something like ninety minutes by public transport.

When my car broke down recently, a half hour drive to a work site took two hours via public transport each way.

A simple one hour drive to an event and then back again would take me through to the next day as there is no transport available late at night, meaning a hotel for the night.

A bus pass is fine if you have regular buses (though I still wouldn't fancy standing around waiting for it to arrive as they're always irregular in my experience) but there will always be times when you can't get a bus so need a taxi, plus for longer journeys it's often a bus to the station, a train, then another bus from the station to the final destination, plus time spent walking.

During the work day if you needed to pop to a meeting at another site that takes 15 minutes to drive you're looking at an hour walking, a bit less on public transport if it's even available, all time you're being paid to work and unable to get on with your paid work.

On a weekend I often go to a city 60 miles away, see a few different friends in different locations, and drive back. I wouldn't actually have the time to do that without a car as every leg of the journey to and from the city and while I'm there would take an awful lot longer.

If you don't ever leave your town or have people to see further away and your job is in one place all day that you can get to and from easily I suppose you're fine. But you have no guarantee it's always going to be that way!

I stand outside all day next to the main road, flinging myself in front of cars waiting at the traffic lights, demanding lifts from selfless owners who are all making 100% essential journeys to visit sick relatives. There's a train station round the corner, like, but this way makes me happy.

Don't worry, no one is going to take your little metal cocoon away.

Seriously, thank god. It's the height of relaxation to be able to get around inside your own clean, warm, private space, with your own music or podcasts playing, the total freedom to take any route you wish to anywhere you want to go.

I have gotten buses plenty before and they're just awful. They rarely come on time, they're not cheap, they often smell bad or are filthy, people try and talk to you when you're clearly not interested and sometimes won't leave you alone, and your route is predetermined so you don't even usually end up where you need to be without another decent walk at the other side.

Whenever I get a bus I think that before people are willing to swap their car for the bus they're gonna have to put a lot of work into making them actually be reliable and run on time, and be a pleasant and safe environment.

I didn't say you did walking, although the fact that you've spent more time talking about cheeky fucker mates than the environment is interesting. If you consider the environment to be of greater importance it might be an idea to mention that.

It'd be a very odd forum if every time we commented on something we had to state our other interests and concerns first. Come on now.

I think there should be a points system and a daily high score board for us, showing how many drivers we've managed to harass that day. Winner gets a car.

If people didn't drive the world would stop.

Well people say this, but what would really happen if (somehow) the private car stopped being a viable means of transport? Railway lines would re-appear and new ones would get built. Tram networks and buses. Those rural bus routes with a bus every two days would become essential and start running regularly - and they'd be used often, so more financially viable.

Cities and towns would stop being designed on the assumption that everyone would drive. Assuming car usage changes town planning. Cities that were built before the car and weren't bombed flat and rebuilt are often easier to live in without a car than those that weren't.

I hate driving but I have three children who need to be driven around so I've had to learn.

Small schools were consolidated into larger ones partly because it was assumed people could drive to big schools. (Though the increase in traffic was not allowed for, hence e.g. the difficulty dropping children off.) Car use is a self-fulfilling cycle. (oops)

Seriously, thank god. It's the height of relaxation to be able to get around inside your own clean, warm, private space, with your own music or podcasts playing, the total freedom to take any route you wish to anywhere you want to go.

Erm. Let's break that down shall we.

Firstly, you are not in a private space - you are outside, on a road, in public. The illusion that the inside of a car is this little womb-like invisible space is a very odd delusion that some drivers seem to have (judging from how unaware some of them are of the world around them while they're driving).

Secondly, 'with your own music/podcast playing'. Ummm... have you never heard of headphones?

Thirdly, 'total freedom to go anywhere'. Yeah... apart from through red lights, down one way streets, anywhere with a toll or congestion charge without paying yet again, anywhere at all if there's a traffic jam.

The number of times I've walked past a car stuck in traffic that passed me five minutes earlier is ridiculous.

I have gotten buses plenty before and they're just awful. They rarely come on time, they're not cheap, they often smell bad or are filthy, people try and talk to you when you're clearly not interested and sometimes won't leave you alone, and your route is predetermined so you don't even usually end up where you need to be without another decent walk at the other side.

You sound beyond precious. Most people are not interested in talking to you. The buses I get are neither filthy nor smelly. Unlike cars. When I occasionally have to get into someone's car I am always struck by how cramped, stuffy, and uncomfortable it is. Plus I get car sick if I have to sit in the back, it's horrible.

Whenever I get a bus I think that before people are willing to swap their car for the bus they're gonna have to put a lot of work into making them actually be reliable and run on time, and be a pleasant and safe environment.

You think cars are safer than buses? lol.

Oh, I forgot to mention - the total freedom of being able to get to your destination, jump off the bus/tube/train, and just go, without having to faff around for hours trying to find a parking space - which as far as I can see is close to impossible in most towns and cities and villages in the UK - and then faff around more paying for it.

I also forgot to mention that some of us actually LIKE to have 'a decent walk' rather than freaking out if we have to emerge from a vehicle more than 100 metres from our destination. I don't want to get fat. Walking everywhere is an important part of that. It also means I have kids who, while still young primary sohool age, will happily walk for miles (literal miles) without whingeing, while their friends who get driven everywhere seem unable to manage more than a few steps without wilting. It makes holidays and travelling a LOT easier - no trying to drag a child through an airport for whom walking is an unpleasant novelty.

I honestly don't know how non-drivers fit everything in.

I honestly don't know how people with kids fit everything in, tbh.

I still think that driving is a basic essential adult skill and it's bizarre when people don't bother to acquire it.

Well, I could afford the money & time to learn to drive, but I don't want to or need to. And it's OK if you want to think I'm bizarre or missing part of my basic essential adulthood. I don't mind.

It isn't remotely odd that if you make zero mention of one car related issue and lots of mention of another, people are aware of your views on the latter but not the former walking. If you did care about the environmental impact of driving, but nonetheless made a number of posts extolling the merits of learning and the problems with not doing and nothing about the environment, that would be weird. That's why, in answer to your question about what drivers who can't avoid driving should do, my answer was clear about the way you should frame the issue.

Well my life definitely improved once I learned to drive. I can fit far more into my weekend, have a greater choice of where to work, and everything's just a bit easier.

Fair enough if some adults don't want to drive, but please don't deny that many non drivers do cause drivers to have to go out of their way sometimes to give them a lift.

That's what annoys me about these threads. The absolute insistence that no non drivers ever bum lifts, become overly dependent on family members who do have cars, etc.

I'm sure some non-drivers do bum lifts and make nuisances of themselves. But some of you seem to want to hold all non-drivers responsible for them, including those who have ordered their lives so as not to inconvenience anyone else.

This morning some arsehole driver didn't stop at the crossing outside my children's school and nearly took out the lollipop lady. Should I draw the conclusion that all drivers are irresponsible dicks who care nothing for the safety of children?

Some people are inconsiderate, self-absorbed twats, regardless of whether they hold a driver's license or not.

Great thread here about public transport.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3244489-to-think-there-s-some-things-you-just-don-t-do-on-public-transport

Having said that, if we could make do with just one car, we would. If we ever live anywhere suitable again, and don't need cars for work, I wouldn't use it a lot.

The thing is, however cheeky non drivers were, even if we literally all bummed lifts, the damage that you drivers are doing is the topic of greater importance. And while you can opt out of giving people lifts if you want, there's nothing I can do about what you're doing to my air quality.

Well my life definitely improved once I learned to drive. I can fit far more into my weekend, have a greater choice of where to work, and everything's just a bit easier.

And that's lovely, user - for you.

Three days a week I walk the 10 minutes to the tube ride all the way to work & read a book on the way. Two days a week I get off a few miles away & run the rest of the way through the local parks.

On Saturday mornings I stroll the 15 minutes to the town centre with my rucksack & a few bags, and do my weekly shop. Just one of me so carrying it all is no problem & there's a bus if I need it.

I agree there are probably plenty of non-drivers who take the piss, but there are also plenty of us who don't & the generalisations on this thread are rather rude. I get thoroughly annoyed by local cyclists whizzing along on the pavement but I wouldn't assume all cyclists are like that.

I am learning to drive, whilst that is happening, I have to manage without a car, so I do, I just get on with it. Walk, taxi, bus, or dh if he's around. Life does not stop because you can't drive, you just have to get on with it.

At least, I won't think the world has ended, and be stuck because my car is broken down, as I have had to rely on other means for so long.

Slightly off topic but....

I like driving, but then it’s a good job as my commute would involve a lengthy journey without it.

I love having my own space, listening to my music, that time to myself (introvert): whereas my friend is the absolutely opposite.

She loves public transport, never wanted to drive, and loves a good chat with people on the bus (not sure they love a god chat at 7am, but..). Each to their own.