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.

You don't have to live in the wilds to need a car. I live ten minutes walk from a station into London. But that's no help to me at all, given that there's no way to visit my kids half an hour away by public transport. Nor could I visit my friends living between 15 and 30 minutes away. And as a teacher I worked in several different schools, none of which I could have reached by public transport.

I suppose I could have worked at a school situated centrally in a town that the train passed through, but that would have cut my chances of employment down hugely. And as I worked in a niche area of education, it would have been even harder.

And again, it's not car ownership that's an issue, but actually knowing how to drive. Being able to rent a car when needed, or buy one when shit hits the fan (when both my mum and MIL, in different locations, needed care I was doing 7 hour return journeys up and down the motorway every fortnight) makes all the difference.

We encouraged our kids to learn to drive (and funded it) as soon as they were 17. It's a life skill, and much easier to learn when you're young.

Well, people can only go by their own experience.

Not driving could be a total non-issue in one location, but the same person in another situation could well be a massive "nope".

When you live somewhere where you can't even get to the pub for lunch without either driving or walking along an NSL road with no pavements, I think it's understandable why you wouldn't want to always be the one to be driving.

We chose to live where we do because we are (or were in DH's case) drivers and car owners.

If I needed to stop driving we would move somewhere with better public transport options.

Getting to work on public transport would involve two (unreliable) trains and a bus and take up to 2 hours. Driving takes about 35 minutes.

Exactly that. So for some people to make such judgements on those who don't drive, is a tad over the top. No?

Yeah, probably understandable. But again, can depend on the situation of those involved and that they find themselves in.
Everyone is capable of saying a simple "No, sorry" if they're tired of being the driver, taking people places, if someone is taking the piss with it.. not everyone is capable of driving.
Those that would be/are capable of driving have to deal with their decision to not drive, like myself. I chose not to drive for years, and even if I wanted to now it's not financially do-able. So I do what I have to do. It's nobody else's problem and I don't put that on to anyone else either.

I've just done searches in Somerset, Sussex, Yorkshire, Suffolk and Cumbria. In every case I could find house shares and even studio flats cheaper than housing further out in the villages, which I assume have poor transport (though not all, of course some do have a train). If your village is particularly undesirable while the nearby town is popular, then sadly you might have to move an extra town away, but that doesn't look to be the norm.

I don't drive. It's not remotely a red flag. How stupid.

I don't understand your point.

There might be cheaper accommodation, but you also need to make sure you have a job, you need to be able to afford the moving costs, the accommodation needs to suit the needs of your family etc.

There's no point banging on about how you can find a cheap house share in Carlisle when it's a family of four who live and work in say, Sedbergh.

Right, so Sedbergh is a good example as it only gets a bus every couple of hours. 3-bed house £1150pcm. Kendal is slightly more at £1400, but Penrith is only £750. It's all about looking and making choices. In London someone might grow up in Westminster, but the faintest look at prices and they'll move to say Bermondsey instead. The point about jobs is bit silly, the entire point was moving to somewhere commutable so that opens up job options.

They are possibly restricting themselves in terms of employment as some companies require that you hold a driving licence and have a car.
I wouldn’t have been able to take my first job after graduation if I did not drive.

Which unless the job actually needs you to drive (visiting multiple sites on a regular basis for example) is rather a silly rule.

I've a feeling that my application for my current job would have been sifted out at an early stage if I hadn't ticked the "driving licence" bit, even though driving company vehicles isn't part of my role and I don't even own a car any more.

I've heard of American employers (low wage ones so the sort of workers who struggle to afford to drive) insisting that an employee drives to work, even though they've found other reliable ways to commute and have never been late.

My friend has moved from a city to a suburb with her husband and kids and is now so resentful for being the only driver. Also for holidays and road trips - how annoying to not be able to swap.

Well, if the original post isn't the most London-centric post that's been on MN for years, I don't know what is....😄

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