How would you manage if you lost your driving licence tomorrow?

[tomorrowisanotherdate]

For example, vertigo is a common one, I have had several friends develop vertigo and lose their license,

You cannot be insured to drive within 6 months of a vertigo attack, and both friends had attacks out of the blue in their early 40s - one only ever had one serious attack and had her license back in about a year - the other has never since gone 6 month between attacks, and has sold her car now

So suppose you have a vertigo attack out of the blue tonight, and can't drive for 6 months, starting now, how would that impact on your life?

Am I Being unreasonable to think lives should be planned around possibly being in this contingency, when choosing homes, jobs schools etc?

I'm not sure you can do that. Your son can't be insured on a car without you being as well, unless you transfer ownership. Might be wrong.

Is ownership recorded or only registered keeper? I could easily transfer that.

I don’t go to the doctor for every little thing not least because I can’t be bothered sitting on the phone at 8am!!!! for about an hour. I’ve had vertigo before but it’s hardly urgent enough to go to a doctor to be told oh you’re a bit dizzy so if no doctor then no one to tell me not to drive.

I'd be ok. I wfh 3 days a week and there's a bus from the end of my street that stops 5 minutes walk from the office, we also have good bus and train links. Kids are independent, oldest drives, youngest learning. I am over-reliant on my car for multiple supermarket trips in the main, so I'd need to plan better and be more mindful of the journeys I make.

Same here - woke up with BPPV ( didn’t know that was what it was at that point) was concerned as was about to start a course, managed to get a GP appointment - DH drove me there. GP tested, diagnosed, said it might go off during the day, if not to come back and they would perform a manoeuvre.

Googled, found very helpful YouTubes of Epley manoeuvre , performed it on myself the next day ( felt too rubbish the first) and - voila, all fine. Didn’t need to drive that week anyway - great buses.

GP didn’t mention reporting and didn’t occur to me as it was obviously a short term condition that got fixed when the crystals got back in position.

What exactly to you mean by ‘ assessed’, OP ? I assume a GP correctly diagnosing a condition and saying it wouid be short term is an assessment?

The key to BPPV is the B it is Benign, harmless. It just feels annoying but is not dangerous percy, so I wouldn’t be handing in my license over it

I had Labyrinthitis a few years ago which causes vertigo. Is that different because it's just an infection and will go away?

I was taken away in an ambulance from my house it was that bad! I cld not stop being sick or trying to be sick, whole body shaking and I cldnt stand etc.

I was never told I cldnt drive by any of the medical professionals I dealt with either at hospital or my gp thereafter. I mean obviously I cldnt drive while I felt like that but after a few days it was getting better. Within a week I was fine to drive and back to normal within 2 weeks. Never had any issues since.

I wfh so would have been ok. I don't live nearby family though 20-25min drive from both sides. Maybe dh wld have got permission to drop eldest at school in his work van. Otherwise I would have had to walk 1 mile to nursery with youngest then more than a mile in another direction to school and then walk another mile home. Then do it all again for pick ups. It wld have been a nightmare for me! Not to mention pretty much stuck without DH as we are over 2 miles from train station but maybe I'd have had to rely on lifts or buses on my days off.

I’m used to not having a car.

We are a one car family, dh needs it for work but often leaves it a couple of days a week (and gets the train) so I can go out for the day with the dcs.

It’s definitely handy having the car, I feel like I can do more with the kids, but I manage just fine without it.
I have easy access to buses and trains so we can take short journeys, I just have to be more organised.

I wouldn't be able to do one of my jobs because it depends on being able to drive to various different places not easy to get to on public transport. Otherwise I would be ok. Could walk to my second job, plenty of shops within walking or bus distance. Could get the train for day trips etc.

I've developed a fear of driving recently so haven't driven for several months. It's fine. DC walk to school, I walk to work. I get a weekly food shop delivery and if I need to top up there's a corner shop or I can cycle to two supermarkets. We can also walk into town for children's activities.

So you’d be driving without a license, insurance & be a criminal, as the previous is criminal behaviour. As soon as you pass an ANPR camera you’d be flagged up as not legal. Or if you broke the law for speeding, running red lights it would flag up.

if you’re driving round with insurance, licences rtc you don’t become a red flag to be pulled over

at the moment I use my car once, maybe twice a week at most. I take the bus or walk to work, have 3 major supermarkets within walking distance, or could do home delivery for larger shops. Even the things I use my car for I could do by public transport or car shares. The main thing it would impact would be travel for holidays and outside the city.

It would be a great annoyance, yes, but we'd manage. My DH doesn't drive. We live quite rurally but there is a train station. We're in one of those tiny towns where most people think "why is there a train station there?". I think my greatest upset would be that we couldn't get to Lidl to do the weekly shop.

We also have a bus to the next town over where we like to go and have lunch, go for a walk, or go shopping. It's expensive on the bus but we could make it work if it was once a week.

Going to visit family would be a great PITA as they live on the opposite side of London with lots of changes on public transport, and we have two (almost three!) children under 5.

I did ponder on this last week - not losing licence but not having car. Our London borough has been on such an anti car crusade and has been chopping up the area into small residents’ parking zones, which makes it impossible to drive from one place and park in another on the roads. We’ve also had one of the utilities digging up our road bit by bit , verrry slowly, making half of the road unusable at any one time. If I moved my car atm I don’t know where I’d park it afterwards.

It would be doable, we’ve got frequent buses, though mostly on the same through route, a train station that has infrequent trains but links into the network, shopping within walking ( with trolley ? ) distance. I could get heavier, bigger stuff delivered. I cycle, though so does every one else and proper bike racks are like gold dust and we have a plague of bicycle thieves.

It would make a lot of my activities tricky - just about to go somewhere via a complicated backwards to go forwards multi bus routing, and the same would apply to visiting friends out of town.

I could rent a car for longer journeys - just realised that Zipcar is no longer in the area, which is interesting.

It would be interesting to see where everyone on this thread lives. I'm amazed that so many people can cope without a car. It's doable round here, I suppose, but only if you are happy to work in a low paying job. For anything decent, you generally have to travel across the border, which, unless it's in Chester, isn't that easy without a car.

It would be great to have a life where I didn't need a car (I'd be better off without having to pay petrol), but until I retire and don't need to travel to work, it can't happen.

Less than 25% of people live rurally, many jobs can be worked from home or a mixture so that helps.

retirment will bring its own issues with driving and being isolated

firstly, vertigo is a lot more than a bit dizzy! It can be a medical emergency, and worst I've known is my friend tube fed and on a rehydration drip for several weeks. I have myself been hospitalised with vertigo twice.

Secondly, no one tells you not to drive, same as if you have been drinking no one tells you not to drive, it is entirely your responsibility to self report.

thirdly, I suspect you have not actually had vertigo. If you have, then yes, it could return in the form of a proper attack. If you haven't, then you don't know why you are dizzy. Either way, sounds lie you really need to be a bit more aware

Assessed as fit to drive. It isn't a short term condition, it might be a short term attack, but the tendency to vertigo is a long term condition. It is dangerous to do the epley manoeuvre without full information because if you do it in the wrong direction you can make the situation very much worse. A doctor should tell you which direction to perform it in

I'd be pretty OK - I'm in London, don't need to drive all that much and managed without it for the first 11 years of adulthood and with my first child. Kids are old enough not to need lifts anywhere.

It'd be a bit of a pain but I wouldn't find it that hard.

Great post.

This is how I feel.
My (well 'our', as a family) life has very much been the better for the fact I have always driven. We would all have missed out on so many opportunities if I didn't drive / didn't have a car but if it came to a situation when I wasn't able to, then you would crack on with facing up to the new situation and getting on with your new life.
But it would have been ridiculous to miss out on the last 40 years of opportunities on the off chance that a statistically unlikely event might have happened.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER
E.g like the time I needed to take 8 litres of homemade soup 60 miles, for the Gdcs’ school Christmas fair!

See, this is what I think about when people say they don't miss anything by not being able to drive. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks being able to drive isn't just about getting to work and back. For me, the ability to drive comes into its own for all the 'one off' things that happen, and for all the things we choose to do at the weekends, and in the evenings when public transport across most of the country becomes thinner on the ground, and when we need to transport things, or when we are on a round of errands that don't involve just going from A to B.

I think you are misunderstanding the word Benign. Of course it can make you unsafe to drive. It doesn't have to be harmful in itself t make you unsafe and uninsurable as a driver. It is not up to you whether you are legally driving or not - if you have had BPPV in the last 6 months, the chances are you are not driving legally.

If you lose your glasses, that is not life threatening, or anything other than inconvenient and expensive, but you may well not be legal to drive!

And yes it can be dangerous, as it can lead to deaths from dehydration, as well as the dangers of being totally incapacitated suddenly, in an unsafe place, such as crossing the road, or behind the wheel of a car.

In all honesty, my life would be over! I couldn't get to work (no public transport) and i couldn't get to the horses (again, no public transport) i wouldnt be able to afford the taxi's needed.

if i cant work or see my horses twice daily, i don't want to be here so i dont know what i would do. I LOVE my life as it is, it's the main reason i never had children - i refuse to give up what i do.

I don't know, sorry - it is something that would have to be assessed, I don't know if labyrinthitis as a cause of vertigo means you don't get the 6 months ban, maybe it does. but again, medical staff are not going to tell you, you are expected to know the highway code and the law well enough to know you report it yourself.

My SIL lost her licence as she had a 'fit' - took along while to get it back. Made me think - I live in semi rural area where you have to drive everywhere. GP was in the village and now has joined 3 others so you can have appointments over 15 miles away. Local bus does not run after 630 during the week and never on Sundays or BH. For that reason I am going to sell my house and move to a more urban area where I have access to transport, shops and facilities. Doing now in my early 60's as my parents left it too late.

I would get taxis.

A bit inconvenient and more expensive but better with the new apps.

They also start with a headstart of about £1k per year as you are not paying car maintenance, insurance, tax and mot fees.