AIBU to think they NEED to teach car maintenance at school?

[MeMyCatsAndMyBooks]

Today my car tyre popped on a piece of metal left in the middle of the road, and I had no idea what to do.
I've been driving since I was 17 and I'm in my 30s and never had an accident touch wood or anything wrong with my tyres.
I instantly panicked as it happened in the middle of a giant hill and knew I couldn't do it there, thankfully a really kind man ran out and helped it be pushed to the side & changed my tyre for me.

I had no idea how to do it, or what a space saver tyre really was! Luckily I got it home driving very slowly & onto my drive and have my breakdown cover coming out next week to change the tyre.
But I just had no idea about any of it. Im aware I sound like a helpless woman, but im usually quite independent but this knocked me for six!

AIBU to think they need to teach car maintenance in school rather than pushing maths (which lets face it isn't anywhere as important) onto students till they turn 18?

Can believe in this day and age someone is suggesting dropping maths. Maths is just as important as reading and writing. If you want to be a mechanic you train as a mechanic and I phone you if I have a problem with my car.

**can't

I think it a skill worth having. Sometimes the breakdown services can take hours to arrive where if you do it yourself you could have the wheel swapped over in ten minutes and be on your way.

If you’ve got a space saver on can’t you just drive it to somewhere? Or have a friend do it? I can’t believe your breakdown cover are coming next week to do something that would take someone literally minutes.

But not many new cars have a spare wheel

But not many new cars have a spare wheel

Not all of us drive new cars or, if we do, we buy ones that do have spare wheels.

Or, as in the case of my MIL, buy a spare wheel separately.

I always buy a spare wheel. Even if it’s only a space saver.

Are you fucking serious???? Take responsibility for teaching that to your kids yourself. Teachers have enough to do because pathetic parents CBA

Except, my tyre had last been placed on by a professional using a machine to tighten the nuts. Even using my full body weight against the bar I couldn't loosen a single nut so had to call RAC/AA

As I said upthread though, whoever did that was far from professional! A Neanderthal who couldn’t give a shit about what they’re doing.

YABU ... schools are there to teach people the requirements of a course for a particular qualification. Your post is yet another example of some parts of society expecting schools to be responsible for everything. Parents, family, self-education ... not everything rests with teachers!

Of course not. That's more of a family thing to teach a child, like swimming or riding a bike or budgeting. In fact when I passed my test (over 18 years ago) it was part of the test. It was pretty new then but I'm sure it's still part of it?

I always have a longer bar and can jump on it if needed.

it’s genuinely odd to me that people choose to be so helpless!

They won't come out for the basic stuff like this will they? I'm sure it's exempt when it's the basics

Sometimes surprising things happen in life and we have to find a way to deal with them ourselves.

My dad taught me to change tyres, check oil etc when I learned to drive, I imagine a driving instructor or friend would be able to if you didn't have a parent who could drive. It's not so much knowing what to do, the car's handbook or youtube have detailed instructions, as having done it once with support to have the confidence to go at it.

That said, when one of ours went recently I was very thankful it was at home as it took DH and I about 45 minutes and a load of WD40 to get the bolts to shift. Would have been scary to do at the side of the road, and I think we also might have had to wait for a kind person to come along who had lubricant or was stronger than us.

Partly it's laziness - when we get a new car we /should/ look at the manual, find out where the spare is and check all the tools are there, have a look in good light where the jacking points are and so on so if a tyre goes out and about we're ready. We hadn't either though.

Some people will never physically be able to change a tyre. They can still drive though.

That's what I think is wrong with school - it shouldn't just be about passing exams.
It should be more. School is a child's community. A large part of their life.
The fact it's all exam exam exam is why so many children are completely turned off from education.

it’s genuinely odd to me that people choose to be so helpless!

What happens if you can’t physically lift the wheel up on to the hub? The spare tyre on my car is so heavy that it has a winch to lower it to the ground from it up to where it lives under the car.

I’m not exactly a weakling either.

Posted too soon. I meant to say “from where it lives under the car.”

tbh teaching how to read instructions and to find the right youtube tutorials would be a good idea.

This is what parents are for. They are the ones who should be teaching social and life skills

By basic stuff, if you mean changing a tyre then yes they will.

Let's add gardening, painting a skirting board, ironing etc etc onto the schools' burden, in fact leave the children there until theuyre 16, that way child minding isn't a problem either. Schools can't and shouldn't be used to make up for lack of common sense and parental deficiencies.

Without Maths you can't put air into your tyres as you can't read a scale!