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.

Yeah, there are a lot of us out here! :)

Mine, according to neurologists, can’t be labeled either strictly dyspraxia or dyscalculia even though there are some similarities with both…but some of the hallmarks of each don’t trouble me at all.

Other parts of my brain work more quickly or efficiently than is typical; for instance I can speed read, and can just generally process language in all forms quite well, as well as odd language adjacent things like being able to mimic accents but only specific things I’ve actually heard said out loud and can “play back” in my head. 🤷‍♀️ One of the doctors kind of threw up his hands and said “it’s not a technical or professional answer, but it almost seems like when your brain was being formed, some parts got too much juice and didn’t leave any for others.” They eventually settled on “unspecified visual-spatial dysfunction of unknown cause” and called it a day.

Anyway, all brains are mysterious weird wonderful things, and I cannot drive or do some things that come quite easily to most people, but I can do some things that most people can’t, and at some point over the past 40 odd years I’ve just made my peace with that. :)

It's not all about having a great public transport system. I'm a born and bred Londoner and used it for 20 years for work. Now I don't have to so always drive instead as a choice because I don't want to stand on packed trains and busses if I don't have to, or feel like I have to leave early before dark because as a woman, I don't want to get on public transport alone.

This ^^ with bells, whistles and whatever else is available on.

The smug "just use public transport/get an Uber" posts are so irritating and tone deaf.

DH won't drive locally any more and it has reached a point where I no longer think he is a safe driver, so I do all the driving. So we got rid of my car this year. It is much cheaper to only run one car, but I am vexed that DH's "won't drive" has now become "can't drive"

Oh I do like the idea of those things so much, I really do. I’m often envious of anyone who gets to drive around on the open road at night, belting out their favorite songs. I do that a lot with people, but it’s not the same I’m sure.

I don't think that it's about that at all. I'm one who has said I'd never have a relationship with someone who didn't drive- when I met my DH he was driving around in a Ford Ka worth £50 that leaked when it rained. It was totally about practicalities and not about 'status' at all.

I'm hypothesising here ; are they judging because you would need to have a car to have a weekend away? I'm assuming you don't really go on UK breaks as most of the country you need a car. So it is actually that they're a bit sneery that you're so London centric?

I'd say it's unusual for people in London to drive. Especially those on a below average income.
But elsewhere I think it would present a real barrier to accessing local amenities. For me local is two minutes walk maximum. To someone in a rural area the shop might be five miles away plus. With no busses or only two a day or something. I think it's really bad that they don't make public transport better in more isolated areas as it means the poor get trapped to an extent.

It would be a red flag / dealbreaker for me. I’d resent having to do all the driving in every situation. Especially with kids activities that are difficult by public transport and visiting family in other parts of the U.K.

Driving is a lifestyle choice. You either choose to do it, or you don’t. In our house it’s also part of our hobbies. We have a classic car, a motorhome, a big fun Jeep Wrangler, and I have a Mini as a runaround. We have towed horses and caravans as well. As a child I used buses and loathed them, made me travel sick. Outside of London, getting anywhere fast is a pain in the butt as transport links are atrocious. Driving is our lifestyle choice, living in London certainly isn’t. Not a status symbol, just part of 21st century living to us.

I’ve only see it be a red flag on MN, nowhere else tbh.

I grew up in an area of 40,000 with reliable public transport and got my learner’s permit at 16, it expired and I never got a license afterwards. I went to uni in a U.S. major city for years and it was considered normal not to drive because parking was so expensive on top of buying a car and maintenance that most just rented a car for the day if they needed it. I moved to the UK over a decade ago and didn’t need a car either. Still don’t due to living in a commuter town with reliable bus services going to different counties and two train station going to London and other big cities. Where are home is schools are both less than a 15 minute walk away as are food shops, several soft plays in walking distance and countless outdoor play areas, as is the gp, library, dentist, and four different gyms. I’ve been in a car under 10 times this year alone and probably wouldn’t make it to 20 by the end of the year.

DH and I both agreed we wanted to live somewhere where driving wasn’t a necessity and kids could walk to do things instead of depend on someone driving them all over. Plus if something were to happen to us where we lost the ability to drive or if we ever had to sell the car, it wouldn’t be a big change, or a very difficult one. DH enjoys driving and I’m happy to run errands by walking. Doesn’t limit me or our three kids and they enjoy taking the bus and train and watching out of the large windows and us walking to places. I’m not asking DH or anyone for rides either and I also do the morning routine and school run for our three children and after school is divided up between DH and me so nothing is all on the driver of the family.

There is a difference between having a licence & deciding not to have a car because you live in Central London and not ever having passed your Test.

I live in a London Borough where there is no tube line....but plenty of frequent buses. I think people would be amazed that there are 3 buses that go past my road, finish after midnight, and before 10pm are every 8-10 minutes.

DH and I both learned to drive. Both didn’t enjoy it and gave it up. Both believe it’s not essential, but a life choice. Both believe the world would be a better place with a different approach to driving and whether it’s necessary. I’d love to hear more people say they can’t drive, didn’t learn and don’t want to.

I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I absolutely can't. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I tried. I don't have ADHD or anything (only dyscalculia, but probably not relevant), I just couldn't do it. I was fine with just driving down a straight road, but couldn't get to grips with manoeuvres like the turn in the road, reverse parking, etc, gear changes. I'd had about 30 lessons with one teacher, who, in the nicest possible way, told me some people just aren't natural drivers. I changed teachers after that. He was so patient. In the end, I was spending a fortune, getting nowhere and going home in tears after most lessons.
I felt so stupid that I couldn't do this. I would love it to be just because I didn't want to. I'm 50 now and thinking of giving it one last go, but since it gets harder when you are older and I was 25 then, I doubt I have much hope.
The blessing is, H doesn't drive either, because he has never had the interest so I am not a burden and we don't have kids. It affects where we live, we can't be more rural, but need to be on a train/bus route and work local. It's never needed to be London or a big city, though.
We NEVER cadge lifts. It's taxis, buses/trains and legs. H cycled when we were younger, a 20 mile round trip to work and back, never missed a day, never had a lift from a colleague. I bussed it. We live elsewhere now, and both walk to work. Reasonable public transport.
I wish I could drive. I might have got it in the end, but there wasn't an endless pot of money to keep spending on something I just wasn't getting.
When people say most people manage it, even the not very bright, or that it's a basic skill/easy to do, I cringe at myself. I don't know why I found it so hard.

You don’t need to drive in London there is good public transport. When I visit my Dad in west London my car stays at his house and I used train/tube and bus. Where I live a car is essential as you couldn’t work without one. The buses don’t connect properly. There isn’t really a train service to where we’d need to go and it is more expensive out of London.

I would consider someone who
doesnt drive a red flag where I am as it would mean they would have limited job options or I’d be a taxi.

I was a driver who didn’t have a car for a number of years when I lived in London. As a renter it was no problem but once I bought a flat it was a complete hassle. Public transport is geared to travelling centrally and back out again so trips around a borough can be painful. Getting paint and equipment from Homebase or furniture from IKEA was near on impossible unless you rent a van or car.

It is a red flag to me, and I have epilepsy and had to stop driving for a year. Medical matters only, and yes, it would put me off a man.

Yeah come back to this thread if you ever move out of London

So what’s the definition of a red flag? I thought it was code for an abuse signifier or control freaky behaviour

It depends where you live. I live in rural Norfolk, so not driving is a massive problem. If I lived in London I wouldn't drive as there is good public transport.
People live outside London, shock!

London is completely different to the entire country. Where we live public transport is ok but not amazing. Where I grew up it is complete shit unless you fancy walking over a few fields to get to the closest supermarket. There used to be a bus near my sisters house, she still lives in our hometown but the route was cut years ago.

I agree.

Well we live in a village and the buses are fairly crap. We both drive but when my dh bust his leg for a few months and wasn't able to drive it was a nightmare. I hadn't realised how much we were reliant on us both driving.

I live in a city (not London) and everything I need is walkable, or within a tram or bus ride if I'm being lazy.

I think London transport is massively overrated, it's not that good and I can get to central London by train faster than it takes the average "Londoner" to get there by any method (as most live so far out it's not really the city of London at all).

Most English cities have good public transport, if you don't then you live too far out in the suburbs/rural.

We go on UK breaks by train. We choose to go somewhere where we can get to by train…I guess if I really wanted to go somewhere that needs a car I’d rent one for the weekend, but because driving just really doesn’t appeal and there are a lot of great places with a train station, we’ve opted for these so far. But I rented a car for our last holiday abroad because it was a place we really wanted to visit and it was not possible without car.

We live in London and nobody in our household drives (3 adults). We manage just fine, and there haven't been any situations where we might have needed to drive in the 20+ years we've lived here.

We take UK holidays in other places though and I can see why people living there would see it as essential. But I'd never consider living there, I would find it so inconvenient to rely on a car for everything. Even in outer London the public transport can be awkward (because everything connects to the centre) but that's why we live very central too.

You're in London. It's a completely different environment from most of the rest of the UK, as well you should probably know.