Why don't you drive. ?

[Fivetillmidnight]

So many posts here from women with various issues , (mostly logistical) with an 'aside' of ... 'dp/DH drives I don't '.

AIBU to suggest that IF you have a car in the family ... AND you have at least one functioning eye, and either feet or hands that work well and no reason that the DVLA would ban you from driving for , then you should learn ?

My moderate/severe categorised Dss has just passed his test. ( well done him !) with the help of Motorbility . Surely if he can do it then there is no excuse not to learn ? and relieve the burden for a family where one is the sole driver (normally the man) .

But equally applicable to a family where the women does all the transportation.

Obviously not an issue for those who don't need a car. This refers to those where a car is used for the family and one adult does ALL the driving .

Yet your dh managed to learn.

My DH managed to learn because his parents paid for his lessons and tests and could afford to buy and insure a car for him.

If my parents had been able to do the same for me I'd have managed learn to drive as a teenager. They couldn't.
I earned £40 a week as a trainee, it cost me £15 a week to get to work, I had to pay £10 keep and buy my own lunches so I could only afford to have a driving lesson every other week. My instructor told me it wasn't enough and to come back when I could either have more frequent lessons or drive in between lessons.

When I moved in with DH at 19 we couldn't afford to run his car and pay the mortgage. He got a van to use from work as it was free. Obviously as the years went by we became better off but when your getting by fine with walking to most places driving just doesn't seem essential anymore.
As I said before nothing in the 'getting around aspect of life' would change if DH left or died my life is arranged around not driving. I don't rely on DH to drive me anywhere, he isn't here four or five days a week and we're fine despite moving further out of town.
I think if you can drive it becomes central to your life which is why so many drivers struggle with the idea someone might not choose to do it. It's like the working parents who say they couldn't be a SAHP because they'd have nothing to talk about/fill their day with.

And before someone says it, by "drinks" I mean non-alcoholic / or the one or two drinks a designated driver is legally allowed.

just that sense of "i'm piloting a two tonne weapon, I could take a life" would actually stop some of the nonsense I see every day
Agreed. I usually don't drive because I am scared and my husband isn't. I would like not to be scared but it's not that simple.

Let's say two women are having dinner. They leave the restaurant and its dark. Women A has her car sitting there and woman B doesn't drive. How awkward for woman A to get in her car leaving woman B standing on the pavement at night to potentially get a bus or get a cab

I’ve been Woman B in that situation many times and I would be expecting to get home the way I got there. Buses and cabs are fine. I would not expect you to offer a lift, and if you did I’d be unlikely to accept unless you were driving by my house anyway.

If you don’t want to give your friend a lift but feel too awkward not to offer, then that’s really your issue, not hers. What are non-drivers supposed to do? We can’t psychically determine whether people are offering us lifts because they want to or because they feel obliged to spare us the horrors of the dreaded bus.

just that sense of "i'm piloting a two tonne weapon, I could take a life" would actually stop some of the nonsense I see every day
Agreed. I usually don't drive because I am scared and my husband isn't. I would like not to be scared but it's not that simple.

Not everyone is or can be a good driver. I think if we recognised that it would be better for everyone.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

I forgo drinking and funds to drive on a night out, my friends can drive they just don’t want to pay for a car.

You're putting and projecting your life choices onto someone else here.

If you choose to drive somewhere, that's fine. You choose not to drink? Presumably you don't have to pay for your mates' drinks either?

What I was trying to say is, if

• You don't drink but you put the money on driving, then generosity could look like giving your mate a lift.

• If your mates drink but don't drive, their generosity could be buying you all your drinks all night in exchange.

What I was trying to say was surely there's some give and take in all this? Otherwise we'd all have to tot up to the bar, individually pay our way, then get our individual forms of transport at the end of the night, so no one felt cheated. Not my style in any case.

I don’t drive because I’m terrified of it. I don’t need to anyway, for work or getting about town. DH doesn’t drive because his bike licence and provisional driving licence were taken off him due to an eyesight issue. That is now resolved and he intended to have more lessons and do his test, but really it’s not top of the list in terms of what we want to spend money on. A car just isn’t that necessary for us. It might be if we have kids, but even then it’d probably just be DH who drives. I’ve got no problems walking or taking public transport.

I personally hope we can do without the extra expense of running a car for as long as possible.

I don't drive because I'm terrified of it, or more exactly harming someone. I have nightmares about it regularly .

And because despite asking the optician and GP why my "straight" is slightly left they think it's all in my head and not an issue. My driving instructor seemed to think otherwise when the car was waving away on the road because we were both putting it "straight".

When I was a teen I lived in a city with great public transport and my family were not well off. None of my siblings learnt to drive then.
When I was in my 20s I lived in London and again didn't need to drive. Plus I did not have the disposable income.
In my 30s I really could have done with being able to drive but I'd just got a mortgage and so financially it was out.
40s ditto.
50s I have finally learned because I have the wherewithal and the need.

There is another aspect though. My DP has driven since his teens and had a car when we met so he drove me all over the place. I think he has a touch of the old fashioned notion that it's his role.

Just depressing, where's the generosity of spirit?

Evaporating fast by the look of things, along with tolerance and kindness.

I don’t drive because I’m terrified of it. I don’t need to anyway, for work or getting about town. DH doesn’t drive because his bike licence and provisional driving licence were taken off him due to an eyesight issue. That is now resolved and he intended to have more lessons and do his test, but really it’s not top of the list in terms of what we want to spend money on. A car just isn’t that necessary for us. It might be if we have kids, but even then it’d probably just be DH who drives. I’ve got no problems walking or taking public transport.

I personally hope we can do without the extra expense of running a car for as long as possible.

just that sense of "i'm piloting a two tonne weapon, I could take a life" would actually stop some of the nonsense I see every day
Agreed. I usually don't drive because I am scared and my husband isn't. I would like not to be scared but it's not that simple.

Not everyone is or can be a good driver. I think if we recognised that it would be better for everyone.

just that sense of "i'm piloting a two tonne weapon, I could take a life" would actually stop some of the nonsense I see every day
Agreed. I usually don't drive because I am scared and my husband isn't. I would like not to be scared but it's not that simple.

Not everyone is or can be a good driver. I think if we recognised that it would

I forgo drinking and funds to drive on a night out, my friends can drive they just don’t want to pay for a car

So you are assuming that women in a house with a car contribute nothing to the cost of that car unless they drive it?

I bought our car (and every car we've had) and I pay for its maintenance, tax, husband's AA membership and at least half the petrol costs - because I am the higher earner. Just because I don't drive it, doesn't mean I don't pay for it.

But no, you seem convinced that non-drivers are all 1950s-style housewives!

I was a SAHM. Difference is I was self-funded. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a choice that promoted feminism on a wider plain and I wasn’t relying on a man to support me.

I'm not going to explain my finances on here but part of the reason we can afford for me to be a sahm is because of the huge contribution I made at the start of our relationship...so yes, he supports me now but it's much more complex and a very long story which I won't go into here.

Women refusing to drive when they can is not for the greater good of their family?!

It is if they don’t feel safe. How often do we see threads about nervous, hesitant drivers who “shouldn’t be on the road”? You lot want it all ways.

@TheMemoryLingers

Very true!

Not everyone is or can be a good driver. I think if we recognised that it would be better for everyone

I don't doubt that at all. But do we really think driving is a peculiarly male skill? Some of us have been making the point that it's usually women who don't drive or say they are too scared or too rubbish at it. Men rarely do.

Ah of course. Same here. I supported the family for two years whilst he set up a business.

Still doesn’t mean that the decision of becoming a SAHM happens in a vacuum.

I find people who “cringe” at others choices don’t have a wide enough circle of experience to see their “right choice” as anything other than right for them.

@Alsohuman

This is such a good point!!

Can't count how many times I've seen women belittled on here for being "nervous" drivers. "Get off the road" is the politest of responses.

Yet here's an OP and others, who can't understand why anyone wouldn't be ON the road if they had access to a car in the house.

So which is it?

I think it’s a far braver choice to acknowledge you wouldn’t be good at something, or don’t want to do something and see that through rather than feel forced.

Oh and where I grew up /teen years very few people my age got a driving licence,mainly because it was expensive,cars and insurance was expensive. Great public transport, cheap taxis and we walked a lot anyways meant there was no need to learn either.

I have dyspraxia. I have failed six driving tests.... One time while learning and newly pregnant I had a bus hit the back of the driving instructors car, also while learning (different teacher) I had a man fire an air rifle in the air above the driving instructors car as he got fed up of 3 point turns outside his home. My instructors exact words were "Bugger the three point turn, DRIVE!!!"
I gave up after my sixth test. The way other people drive now I dont want to learn.