Does it annoy you when someone who doesn't drive frequently asks for lifts?

[coffeeforone]

Aside from medical reasons (including vehophobia), would you judge someone who doesn't drive themselves but often asks for lifts for themselves and their children?

Person in question is a friend and neighbour. Her DH works abroad and there is an unused car sitting on her driveway. Three times in the past fortnight she has asked if me or my DH could drive her somewhere:

1. Hospital - running late for a non-urgent appointment so no time to get bus
2. DS's little kickers session on Saturday (my DS goes too so fine) - this one happens whenever her DH is not around on a Saturday
3. To the local train station in the morning as it was raining

Another person is my aunt, who doesn't drive by constantly asks my parents for lifts to supermarkets, town centres, appointments.

AIBU that this is cheeky. If you don't want to learn to drive, fine - but you should get public transport instead of relying on drivers (emergencies aside), if you are asking for lifts but can't ever return the favour.

BertrandRussell that's untrue when you're being asked to divert miles in the opposite direction from your destination to pick them up.

Nobody has a problem with giving lifts to people who are undemanding and make sure they don't put the driver out IME. Most people have an issue with people who expect others to divert substantially from the direct route, wait around a long time or leave inconveniently early, and are indignant if their request is turned down.

It's not always people who don't drive, IMO people who can drive but don't want to/ don't want to transport their own children for some reason can be worse. Especially the peculiar breed who are unwilling to reciprocate, assuming that they have some kind of special busy person status and that everyone else is at a loose end with nothing to do...

I don't drive, for a number of reasons (including being a passenger in a very nasty car wreck), but I never ask for or expect lifts from anyone. I live in a city centre now and public transport is okay, but I've also lived rurally and the nearest bus stop was a half hour walk away, and the nearest train station 3 miles away. Often if I needed a train I would have to walk there as buses were so irregular and always late.

You just get on with it. I will learn to drive at some point but I don't need to at the moment. But I make that choice and don't expect anyone else to pick up the slack to make my life easier! She's really cheeky.

No feckin way

As a pp said you give an inch they take a mile

I expect people to make it too my house first and then get themselves home from my house if we are travelling a distance away and we have something pre-planned. This is how we worked it when I was giving a colleague a lift to work over a prolonged period of time. He had to get up a bit earlier to catch a bus to my part of town but, I didn't expect a contribution towards petrol as I was driving there anyway. He then caught another bus after work home. I wasn't put out and he didn't need to take annual leave.

I don't offer lifts to take people places that I am not going myself (neighbour who was running late to her hairdressers appointment)

If you've agreed to something you should be able to make your own way or else it is obvious you can't go.

My cf ndn until she fell out with me! Trips to Tesco but didnt want me to walk around with her and her DC, think she expected me to wait in the car. Trips to collect furniture from free cycle, pick youngest up from brownies so she could go for a drink after work, deliver a mattress to her mums the other side of town, a trip to lidl as she'd run out of yoghurt, met up by chance at shopping centre & I offered her a lift home but i just needed some milk from the supermarket so she says she'll meet me in there, only to find shes going to get a weekly shop and browse the clothes and homeware, I waited an hour and a half, the best one was an urgent trip to the local shop to buy chocolate buttons and ice cream. So glad she fell out with me

@BertrandRussell

“I can’t. I REALLY recommend Uber/local cab co; they’re SO handy and you never need to worry you’re inconveniencing them”

I know a few people like this
1 is an acquaintance for over 20 years who i dont see that often. She is quite a cf in other ways too. We meet up for a meal. Most people have 2 courses and a soft drink, because they are driving she has 3 courses, side dishes and wine because she plans to freeload a lift and then suggests we split the bill x ways. She tried to guilt me into giving her a lift the last time we met because we live in the same county!! It would have been about an hour detour for me and I'm 99% sure she wouldn't have offered any petrol money, i ignored her story about how many buses it was going to be and how early she would have to leave.

The 2nd is from a sports group. She is very eco and doesn't have a car but needs a lift to every match we go to. The rest of us take it in turns to drive.

Several fruends who don't drive seem to think that i have somehow been gifted a car with unlimited free parking, repairs and MOTs and that it runs on fresh air. Also that because i drive I'm happy to spend an hour and a half of my evening doing detours to pick up and drop off said friends in all directions!

Mind you, it annoys me when driving friends frequently offer me lifts as I prefer public transport, particularly for longer journeys.

It's easier to decline giving a lift than accepting one!!

Yes! Worst 'I don't drive' offender I knew of was a mother of 6 kids (incidentally had plenty of money) who took it for granted that everybody else would ferry her brood to and from their various activities while she sat serenely at home with a glass of wine.

Luckily she was a friend's friend, not mine. As my friend said, 'She's the clever one - we're the mugs.'

Ah yes, the old Mumsnet favourite- giving a lift being considered akin to giving a kidney!

That really isn’t the case here. The neighbour is repeatedly asking to be driven somewhere; I’m all for being neighbourly, but why act as an unpaid taxi driver? If she wants to go places by car, she could presumably pay for a taxi, learn to drive, or occasionally enjoy a lift from her neighbour.

Do you really think the OP is unreasonable to feel the way she does? Unless there’s more to this than meets the eye, I’d be feeling put upon.

@BertrandRussell

@Skinnychip please please please stop offering her lifts. Stop allowing her to continue. If you put your foot down it's likely other people will follow suit.
It's as easy as, 'I'm not going straight home.'

@BertrandRussell

Spot the CF who scrounges for lifts in RL.

I didn’t drive for two years and relied exclusively on a group of friends whose children had shared activities with mine to provide lifts. For my own transportation I cycled or took a bus. Their kindness saw me through a tricky time and I’m still grateful. Now I offer lifts at every opportunity but will never be able to catch up.

I’ll also drive for non-child activities, e.g. taking my friend’s elderly father to the shop and pharmacy as she had to work, ferrying a friend a few places when her car was in the shop.

On the other hand, my ex-brother-in-law, a senior civil servant in his early fifties with the means for lessons, has never driven in his life. When I asked him why not he said “I find I can use public transportation for all my needs.” Which is fine, except when my sister had their child, it was her parents who took her to and from hospital; when he needed to visit his four other children from previous marriages, it was my sister who drove him to their towns or to the trains; when they hosted his mother each Christmas it was my sister who drove the 50miles to collect his mother and the 50 miles to return her; ad nauseam.

It’s possible he has some phobia or issue that he’d prefer not to discuss, which is fine, but his pithy reply revealed a complete lack of self-awareness and a selfishness that all his needs should be met by others and that he wasn’t the father or husband he could have been because of his choice not to learn to drive. Him, I wouldn’t offer a lift to, under any circumstances.

I passed my test after I had kids, and well into adulthood. When I didn't drive I rarely asked for lifts, because it was my choice not to drive and the onus was on myself to either learn or get myself where I needed via public transport. People would offer and I would accept only if I was sure they didn't feel obliged.

In general, as a driver now I don't mind giving close family lifts, and will offer kids' friends lifts because their parents have been generous in the past, I like to return that favour now. I wouldn't however be going put of my way regularly for a neighbour if it seemed like they were asking because they just didn't want to use public transport.

I drive daily but if I don't fancy the drive to a particular place, I take public transport. Hate being beholden to anyone so would not ask for a lift. Some people are just cheeky and take the mick.

Yes.

I don't mind the occasional ask if it's an emergency or I'm going that way, but otherwise, yes, it's very annoying.

Just say no.

It's not being a CF at all. If the other person doesn't want to do it they can say no.

Ah yes—when I didn’t drive I also paid a fortune in taxis for children’s doctors appointments, rather than ask friends for lifts. Because my kid’s physio isn’t their responsibility and isn’t somewhere they’d be going anyway.

I do feel for people who can’t afford lessons or the cost and running costs of a car. Not driving was a real eye-opener for me as to the over-priced, unreliable, time-wasting scam that bus services are (probably not so much in major cities). I had the means to pay but many don’t and £5 for a return between villages to collect a prescription that isn’t there becomes £10 when one collects the next day, and it’s never easy doing a shop for a family and lugging bags all over the place. There really needs to be more in place to assist the financially and physically vulnerable, and I’d support that with my taxes, amongst other ways.

I don’t really mind for a friend. Lifts aren’t the only favour someone can give and my non-driving friends are generous in other ways.

After my whinge about giving lifts, I'd like to add i often offer lift shares to friends kids and am happy to do so when there is a reciprocal arrangement or I'm going somewhere anyway.
Of course giving someone a lift doesnt add to the wear and tear of my car, or cost more but if i have saved a person a bus fare or taxi fare and often a substantial amount of time and inconvenience its not unreasonable that they might offer a favour in return/buy you a drink/offer some petrol money.

if they don't have a car I am heading in that direction anyway so doesn't put me out, absolutely no problem

if the relationship is normally balanced with give and take in other ways, and they are stuck/I am not doing anything important, absolutely no problem

if it is a real one off emergency (help my wife has just gone into labour/broken limb etc), no problem

if they constantly take, and every request is due to some drama of their own making then no

if its one particular acquaintance who reeks of cigarettes (I'm an ex-smoker and since being pg 15 years ago it makes me feel nauseous for ages after) then only if dh is around to take them

Nobody forces you to say yes. Needing a lift because it's raining is a joke, especially in the UK.

Yes. I annoyed my self doing it when I couldn't drive. I can now, and it's great.