To not understand the obsession with driving / red flag if partner doesn’t drive?

[User7567]

Why is this such a big thing? I see so often here that people wouldn’t date someone who doesn’t drive. Neither me nor my husband drive (we both have a licence but no car). I just don’t see the point. I don’t enjoy it, the tube (we’re in London) is much quicker and more convenient, parking is a nightmare and expensive….these very few times we find ourselves in a position where public transport is not convenient, we call an Uber/taxi (approx once per month/once every two months). Works out so much cheaper than paying for congestion charge, parking, insurance, MOT etc. over the year. I’m glad that my partner sees it the same way and that we can invest the money we’d otherwise spend on a car elsewhere…obviously each to their own and so on, no one needs to care what works for us and I don’t care what others do, I’m just confused why the majority would consider us as a red flag for not driving.

Read through the thread, or any thread about driving on Mumsnet. There are loads of people admitting they are bad, nervous, anxious, panicky drivers. All the time.

Not at all. If I need to go somewhere and do something. I do it, I sort it. I'm a big girl and made the choice to not drive myself. There are buses and taxis, I have legs. We also have everything we need in the village so ultimately, it's within walking distance itself. I mean you really are in no place to tell me if I rely on anyone to take me to places given that you don't know me and see our situation.. 🤨

Any driving thread on MN always invites loads of nasty posts, it's almost like it's a red flag.

Fair enough , I'll take your word for it. Not encountered this in real life. Maybe people saying they're nervous drivers but certainly no one admitting they're an aggressive or dangerous driver.

If suffering with anxiety and not being able to afford another car, additional expenses etc, then.. I'm happy to be that red flag 😉

Nervous drivers are dangerous drivers.

You said in your previous post "DP say's it can be a little annoying sometimes".

Yes. Little and sometimes.. I also stated it does not impact us negatively as a whole, and it's not a deal breaker, red flag or big deal to us. 🤣😂
I also stated part of the reason me not driving was due to anxiety, you are harping on about dangerous drivers and state nervous drivers are dangerous drivers.. you've said it yourself! I stay away from the driving due to this fear from other people and potentially myself and anxiety!! I'd rather my DP find it a little annoying sometimes than cause physical/mental harm to others.

I used to drive out of London to some gigs with three friends. We’d hire a car and take it in turns to do the driving. Well three of us did.

The fourth woman couldn’t drive, and wouldn’t learn. We decided not to enable this, and found another gig buddy who would take her turn at the wheel.

I absolutely know there are places you need a car to live in. That's why, as a non-driver, I don't live in them. The fact that some people who don't drive do, and cadge lifts, isn't under dispute. What is, for me, as a non-driver who doesn't have lifts, lives in a small town in the north which has good transport, is the notion that everywhere outside London is a rural backwater and every single non-driver is some weak, pathetic individual who.sits on their arse crying about lifts. There's far more of that on this post than a refusal to recognise poor public transport.
Yes, I understand all the arguments about those who just don't want to learn, being the driver in a partnership, etc. But when you've reached 50 years of age, neither you, not your partner drive and yet somehow you have managed to hold down good jobs, get a mortgage, visit relatives on opposite ends of the country, go on holiday, etc, without bleating about lifts, etc, most of this thread is bloody offensive from a lot of people who would behave like they'd had a limb amputated if they couldn't drive.
I'm sorry I am not as clever as all of you, and spent a fortune struggling to do something you all find so 'basic'. I genuinely and honestly wish I could drive. But I am not 'lazy' or 'passive', or any of those brushes all non-drivers are being tarred with. I haven't lived with 'mummy and daddy'' since I was 18, I am certainly not being driven round by them. My h is not a 'manchild', either, despite not being able to drive. He is very much an equal partner and very definitely not stupid. He was the one cycling 20 miles round trip for work, doing it in half the time of the car drivers stuck in traffic who moan about walking five minutes from their car to the office door in the rain, constantly late because 'traffic', etc.
For every story you have got of a lift-cadging Muppet, we've both got ones of the constant excuse of 'stuck in traffic' for being late (I, a bus user, always got the earliest bus to avoid peak times, something apparently beyond the average person with that all-important 'basic skill'), any amount of snow defeating them whilst the bus I was on picked up at the stop ten minute's walk from their house.
Of course, in fairness, I must acknowledge the existence of these awful lift-bumming imbeciles living in places without good transport and not learning to drive, because you all tell me they exist. It's a shame that, in fairness, none of you seem willing to recognise that there are any people at all who don't drive outside of London or a major city who don't need or want to bum lifts and aren't helpless kidults.

Those people shouldn't drive then.

I understand if you live in London. I don't - it would definitely be more inconvenient where i live. A lot of colleagues and/or their partners don't drive, this can sometimes cause issues with getting to and from work as it's in the middle of nowhere. My partner and I both work there and share a car, but we both drive so if one of us isn't working, the other can drive. I'm not a confident driver so I'm glad my partner drives, but I wouldn't see it as a red flag if he didn't. Neither of us drove when we started dating (we were teens).

A lot of people are nervous when they first start driving. Should nobody gain that confidence then?

I was specifically replying to the person who said nervous drivers are bad drivers.

@ObelixtheGaul

I totally get what you are saying and it's fine for people not to drive if they dont want to. I dont think it's automatically "lazy" or anything like that, it's just a life choice like any other. But I do think if you make a choice not to drive then it is your responsibility to sort out public transport for yourself and not to just expect the drivers to take you.

I think those of us who drive just get utterly sick of people assuming we're their default taxi driver and its just assumed that we will drive everyone home on a night out, even if its in the opposite direction or people that we give regular lifts to never ever even offer to pay for petrol. Its not even that I want their money, its the fact its never even bloody offered that pisses me off. Its just rude.

OK, I haven't followed the conversation. I am a nervous driver so I don't drive where I don't know, but I still drive (to and from work as I'm happy driving this and not dangerous!).

Because MN can be a cesspit of judgement and should not be taken seriously by anyone with an ounce of compassion.

At other times it can be an unmatched source of support and information.

Bit like life overall really.

I don't necessarily think nervous = bad. Someone else said this & I was responding directly to that.

In fairness @ObelixtheGaul I do think it's very different when neither party drives, as the "burden" of driving everywhere isn't pushed onto one party.

It also took me a long time to pass my test and I certainly don't think non-drivers are stupid, but I just remember how much my life changed when I passed my test and I know I would never voluntarily go back to having to rely on public transport to get me places.

I've also never said that everyone outside London who doesn't drive is a bum who cadges lifts, just that in my particular area, most non drivers don't have a choice but to do just that, otherwise they'd be stuck.

At the end of the day, we're all speaking from our own experience. If for some reason I had to give up my license I wouldn't stay here - my life would close up to a tiny bubble and I'd be utterly miserable. I wouldn't be able to do the most basic tasks like visit a dentist or see my parents.

If some people can genuinely live their lives without needing to drive and don't rely on other people to ferry them around then good for them, but for many it's just not possible and I do think non-drivers (who are with a driver) don't realise how much they rely on a car, even if they're not the one driving it.

Because a lot of us don’t live in London so don’t have access to good public transport?

If I wanted to get the bus to take my kids to school and then go to work it would take me nearly two hours. It takes me 40 minutes in the car. A lot of people can’t get on without a car and when only one of you drives that can be a significant contribution to running family life that isn’t there.

this is either deliberately goady or smugly naively London-centric

Try it in the US (I drive now but I didn't when I was there) - they look at you like you said for fun you torture puppies. Or just try it outside of London! It's a lot more common and socially acceptable there than anywhere else in the UK.

Yeah, a lot of people do see it as some sort of rite-of-passage marker of adulthood kind of thing. And some people are just kind of dicks who like to make out that someone who's a bit different from them in any way at all is obviously a freak - people who don't drink / are vegetarians / don't have kids / don't have smartphones / whatever. And cars are some weird symbol of masculinity for a lot of men.

I suppose another POSSIBLE reason, in some cases, is that for people who live in places where a car often really is the only way to get anywhere, we're sometimes annoyed by the people who don't drive but are forever begging lifts. Especially if they act very superior about how green they are in one breath, and beg yet another lift with the next.

Where we live is about 40 mins walk from my workplace - I can do it in 37 if weather not too hot, 45 if I stroll. I can get a bus that takes me directly to my workplace if I walk for 15 mins first or a bus that stops 15 mins from my work place from the bus stop 2 mins walk away. A taxi is doable but gets stuck in traffic. If I wanted to drive to work, I would not be entitled to a parking permit for the staff car park. There is a car park for our ‘customers’, if I wanted to use this instead to park I would have to ask for a different start time. I’m honestly flabbergasted by how many people do ask for a different start time for that reason. Obviously, they don’t all get it because someone has to be there to open building and car parks and provide services. The people who feel they have to drive are so often single people with no dependents who live nearer than I do that it genuinely puzzles me.

Oh, I totally agree with you. And perhaps I am just very conscious about not doing that because of being embarrassed about not being able to drive, but the flip side is the times I have spent trying to stop drunk friends driving when we offered to share a taxi, and the memorable occasion when a friend who was out with us in our home town was falling down drunk and still trying to get in her car to drive when we lived within easy walking distance of home.
I don't do big nights out now, but when we did, we always made our own arrangements to get home, not least because there was still a lot of drinking and driving going on then. I don't rely on other people after a night out because I don't entirely trust that they haven't had a drink. I have taken people's keys and paid for a taxi for them in the.past. I don't think that happens as much now, thank goodness, but drunk behind the wheel is something I find loathsome and it's surprising how much, back in the 90s, people still did it. And how many people thought being slightly over the limit was fine. This was all in an area with plenty of taxis available, or even, in some instances, they could have walked home.

Ah, at last someone names places.

New Forest - train to Southampton, Brockenhurst, or Lymington. Then use buses such as #6 Lymington to Southampton or the X7 to Paultons Park. For handling areas with fewer buses, taxi from Lymington to Beaulieu is £14. It's a holiday, so take the ferry to Hythe. We've holidayed happily car free.

Devon - Train to Exeter, Plymouth, Barnstaple etc. Buses like 21A and 310 would get you around sights near Barnstaple. Exeter train to Dawlish etc. We've holidayed happily car free.

Cornwall - haven't been for years but have been years ago car free stopping along the train line, bus to Eden project etc.

Cotswolds has trains throughout; needs a bit of planning to work out the best bus or train service sometimes, but everywhere was covered easily by looking up routes each evening for the next day, and two short taxi rides when we wanted to connect more quickly. The steam train from Gloucester was a nice way to get around while enjoying the journey.

Dorset you again pick a side based on train connections and travel round a hub; Bournemouth or Yeovil or Weymouth. We haven't been post child nor post covid, but it was fine for us both car free before.

Now, those who are determined to live 8 miles from a village, 24 miles from the nearest school and work 3 towns in the opposite direction - yes, they will certainly struggle if they don't drive in some of these counties. Those are all clear choices some individuals deliberately made though, in full knowledge of their options for getting around, and certainly it isn't a large proportion of people who make their own lives difficult.

Now, those who are determined to live 8 miles from a village, 24 miles from the nearest school and work 3 towns in the opposite direction - yes, they will certainly struggle if they don't drive in some of these counties. Those are all clear choices some individuals deliberately made though, in full knowledge of their options for getting around, and certainly it isn't a large proportion of people who make their own lives difficult.

Why are you choosing to ignore the fact that some people are born in places like that and can't afford to live anywhere else?

I chose to move here and did so knowing I'd need a car, but all of DH's family were born here and used to cope just fine because we used to have an excellent public transport system.

Unfortunately some of the lines closed, the buses stopped and many people who have lived here for generations are now in a situation where the choice is "learn to drive" or "uproot your entire life"