To think it's ridiculous how people go to pieces when they don't have their car

[orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements]

This might be unpopular.

Being able to drive and having a car to get around seems to be a sign that you have your shit together and you are a proper adult.

However, I have witnessed so many times people that are used to cars, absolutely failing to cope the minute they no longer have access to one, even if it's just for a day. Where as people who use public transport frequently have to plan around last minute cancellations and lateness and are actually required to be more organised.

A couple of examples.

SIL (BIL's wife) had a company car for years. She now doesn't work enough hours to have it so she lost her company car. I made what I thought was a genuine and helpful comment about the fact that she's lucky she lives on a great bus route and got given looks of disgust and no-one even answered me. It was as though they thought I was deliberately trying to be factious or something. Now MIL comes and takes her on days out with her toddler and even takes her shopping because she no longer has a car and claims she can't get anywhere. I have two children and have always managed days out and shopping with out one.

Someone once called in to work and said they were going to be late because their car had broken down and they had to get a bus. There was an out pouring of sympathy for her, people were calling her every few minutes to check she was OK and making jokes about how horrible it must be for her. She turned up at the office a whole hour late, was hailed as some sort of hero for getting there and told not to worry if she had to be late for the rest of the week while she got her car sorted. I lived on the next street over and got there on the bus every single day.

AIBU to think these people kind of need to grow up a little bit and handle their shit?

My kids will be having driving lessons as soon as they turn 17. It is a valuable life skill. But they sure as hell will know how to use public transport and cycle too.

My DC are the one who know way into town walking or busing - one with experience on the trains to help their mates out.

My DC can't cycle - well two it's likely dyspraxia like me - other one the roads here are bad for cyclists so would prefer she not.

DD2 currently surprised her driven everywhere friend doesn't know where two main supermarkets in area are - as her parents drive to biggest ones in town.

They do usually work it out pretty quickly though when they leave home and go to new areas with no car.

the thing is, you have changed your tack from the original post, which was despairing at people who drive who behave like the world has ended because their car is off the road, and people have responded, explaining WHY that might be the case.

My car has been off the road, and i have resorted to walking/using buses/trains, i still do occasionally use trains to get to places inner city as the idea of driving around them horrifies me (especially Birmingham and Manchester) i'm currently looking into the logistics of flying to Edinburgh from the midlands to visit friends, and the practicality of how to get my DD to the college she wants to attend post GCSE without me spending another 2 years being her taxi, but my failing mobility and increasing support needs are making it a MUCH bigger trial than it would have 10/15 years ago, even with 2 small kids in tow back then.

Yes there ARE people who cannot cope without cars, and who would also struggle to negotiate public transport, but surely its understandable that when their usual mode of transport fails, that it might take them a little bit to change tack and learn how to negotiate the same routes via a different method?

Your annoyance at the two examples in your OP is misplaced, the fact your SIL has someone willing to taxi her around is no different that if she chose to use an actual taxi.

It depends on where you live. I used to live in London and didn't have a car and didn't want or need one. Now I live in a small village in Lincolnshire and I couldn't manage without. There are only 2 buses a day and the nearest supermarket is 3 miles away. It's horses for courses.

It totally depends on where you live. I grew up in a city in Yorkshire and the public transport was bloody awful. The buses were supposed to be every 10 minutes but they were always late and sometimes cancelled. Getting anywhere for a certain time meant you’d have to leave an hour or even two hours early to make sure you could definitely get there, even if the bus journey only took 10 minutes just because they were so unreliable.

I travel to work on the train and it’s transpennine, anyone with any experience of transpennine will know precisely how fucking useless they are. If my first lecture is at 9am, I have to get the 6.30am train even though it’s an hour journey because I cannot rely on TP to not cancel 5 trains in a row (happens at least twice a week).

There’s also the issue of needing to get 5 buses to get somewhere that would be a simple 30 minute drive. Driving is definitely a million times more convenient, especially with kids.

My dad has lived in London for over 20 years now and the PT there is amazing, amongst the best in the world I’d say so I don’t understand why anyone would drive in London. Anywhere else in the country though and yeah, I get it.

I do agree with you that we need more, better designed public transport, @orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements. Unfortunately, for years (probably decades) now, housing seems to have been planned on the basis of people having cars, rather than aiming to enable people to use public transport.

I live in the countryside, in a village in Scotland, and there are a number of new housing estates around where I live - and none of them seem to have been designed to allow people to either walk to the services that they need, or to have public transport that will actually work for people's needs - getting to and from work, school, shops, appointments etc.

I would like to see new housing developments being made to include services such as GPs, dentists, a local shop, even schools, in their planning - if not on the actual development, then within walking or cycling distance, or on an existing and sufficient public transport route.

Until that happens, and until there is some sort of coordination of public transport services so that they actually work for the needs of the people they serve, communities like mine are going to carry on being heavily reliant on cars.

Like some other posters, I cannot use public transport - I have long covid and cannot walk more than 30m, so I couldn't get to the bus stop nearest to us, and couldn't get anywhere when it got to the destination. The only way I could use the train is if I booked assistance in advance, and was driven to the nearest station - and even then, I would be completely sunk if the assistance didn't turn up. Dame Tanni Grey Thompson was left stranded on a train because there was no assistance just before the Paralympics, so it does happen.

The OP's point is about people looking down on non car drivers as uncapable despite not being able to use any other modes of transport not about people driving in general.

Imagine for example someone who cooks lots of elaborate meals using an Aga and smugly looks down on people using microwaves or air fryers or eating beans on toast. One day the fancy cook's oven breaks down and they refuse or don't know how to use a microwave or toaster and instead of trying, end up having dinner at their friends houses all week as they have Agas and they can only eat elaborate oven cooked meals and they continue to look down at the microwave users.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I completely agree. There are a couple of newer estates around our way (Surrey). They're very nice and DH and I considered moving to one a while ago but at the time I was commuting to London and the limited public transport put me off. Now, DS has a few friends who live in those estates and it's a pain. he can and does cycle quite often but it is a couple of miles and he certainly can't do that in the evenings/dark. So we have to drive him/his friends parents drive them. There is ONE bus that goes from these estates on a very slow and convoluted route into our local town and then from our local town there are busses coming out again towards where we are, but it's a 40 minute journey, minimum, vs a 10 minute drive. Even just popping to a local Tesco is at least a mile.

I simply don't understand why, when they built these beautiful estates, they didn't take other infrastruture into account. Space for a couple of small shops. Maybe a GP surgery. Definitely more public transport. The one estate that DS' BF lives on has some lovely open green areas, TWO playgrounds. But they can't pop to a corner shop for milk and their children need to be driven if they want to go anywhere. Completely crazy.

YABU. If someone normally has a car, then their lives and routines are set accordingly. My children go to school in a different town. I work in a different town. My husband works in a different city. Public transport links to any of these places from where we live are prohibitively shite (think 2 hours one way). We each have a car through necessity and when one of them is in the garage it makes life extremely stressful.

You know you make a snide comment about good bus routes.

I’d say it’s unusual behaviour lacking any empathy around the utter hassle of breaking down - the issue isn’t getting public transport. But, hey, we’re all unique.

Where does the viciousness come from?

mask your boss if you can come in late because you get the bus. Talking about smelly people on the bus is rude if they know you use it.

we only have one car between DH and me and our kid takes priority so it may mean early train station drop offs as there isn’t a bus to the station for a 5am train. Our kid navigates the buses as for last min things he wants to do like see friends etc then I may have the car out for work so he sorts himself out.

I don’t understand the drama of SIL with grocery shopping or yourself as I pay £7 a month to Asda for online shopping and can have as many deliveries as I want over £40. Far cheaper than taxi and no dragging kids around.

sounds like you are pretty independent and nobody asks you for help with something you know about.

Context is everything. I have to get one DC to school at no earlier than 8, another DC to a different school on the other side of town at no earlier than 8:30 and myself to work either at 9 in our town or 9:30 in a different town just under an hour's drive away in peak traffic. Public transport is abysmal and expensive. Walking while physically possible (other then the commute) but takes too long. Without the car I can't do it without a huge amount of stress and having to rely on others, which is OK for the odd day but not if the car is out of action for a prolonged period.

I am stuffed without my car because my job IS public transport. I have to be there before the trains run so an ability to drive is essential (unless you happen to live within walking distance of the station) we are specifically told we are NOT allowed to rely on public transport to get to work.

Why don’t you drive by the way?

If I had to rely on public transport to get me to work, it would take me 36 hours 😂

Its not bike lanes that slow down traffic, it's other traffic, you are part of the traffic jam

You misunderstood me, It's the road works for the cycle paths. I'm looking forward to being able to use them. Hence, considering an electric bike. To beat the roadworks and then use them.

To be fair, the woman in your second example did nothing wrong other than jump on a bus. From your post it sounds like it was all the other people at your work that made the fuss and made all the comments and hailed her a hero. She didn’t panic or act like it was the most stressful experience of her life, or act like her whole world was going to end… she just figured out what bus to get and then got on it, understandably arriving much later than she would’ve done had her car not broken down.

I think there are deeper things going on here.

1. People are complex creatures of habit and they can't stand change and co workers and people in general love to watch others fail and were gloating at the misfortune of their car - less co worker.
2. People under stress ( at work) rely on camaraderie to get through the day, strengthening workplace friendships helps with problem solving strategies.

so I would be more the car driver in this situation. But I also have a schedule which is packed and based on car journey times. If I was suddenly without my car then mine and my families routine just doesn’t work. It’s not about being able to figure out a bus route, it’s that the bus takes over 3 times as long as a car and so, for example, I would be late to work as I only have 45 mins to drive there after dropping the kids at school. If I now had to take public transport it would take me about 2.5 hours!

You're being unreasonable. If my car broke down unexpectedly I'd not be able to get one of my DC to school other than by taxi. My other DC has a number of health appointments where there is no reasonable public transport option, so taxi again. If it was an office day for me it would be near impossible to get both DC to school and me into the office at a decent time and if need to leave 2 hours early to pick them back up in time.

You build a life around your own circumstances and mine includes having a car, when I don't have the car for whatever reason it's very tricky to get everyone where they need to be at the times they need to be there.

Why can't sil buy herself s cheap car?

Or just use the bus

Or just use the bus

I haven’t had to use public transport since school. I have had to use trains sometimes for work when I’m in different locations - I absolutely hate it. It’s stressful and unreliable, so to suddenly be flung into that when you have never had to do it before is more unsettling than for someone for whom that is the norm.

My town is built for drivers, the public transport isn’t suitable for everything, and I simply can’t get to my place of work on a bus. There just isn’t one!

It’s only a 10 min drive, but would be a 45+ minute walk, and no bus links. Fortunately I have access to more than one vehicle, options of a lift and I can work from home, so it shouldn’t matter too much and isn’t something I’ve ever really worried about. But buses aren’t always the answer.

I no the bestbone liners come from these people i have no car i cant get to the shops i have no car i cant get the kids to school lol its actually quiet funny