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?

It’s not really about the car though is it @orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements ? Your posts sound like you are peed off by people who are less pragmatic and capable than you - I suspect that will be ALOT of people throughout your life so you do need to find a way not to let this stuff bother you!
I also find this level of incompetence irritating but as long as it’s not impacting me directly I let it slide. If your MIL was complaining that SIL is taking advantage that would be different but unless I’ve missed it (apologies if so) she isn’t.

Those are some of the places I end up working in.

Oddly I drive to those.

There as other places are right next to train stations. Depending on my connections to those particular stations I can take the bus and train, or I drive.

Why did my photo not appear with my comment?

Also small kids generally love bus rides, sil needs to expand her horizons

Without my car I'm stuck. No buses at all and taxi's typically cost £25 to go 7 miles to the nearest town (where I work, so £50 a day just to get to work). That's if you can get a taxi as there aren't many around here.

Yes, and?
Most people don't like changes, especially the less comfortable ones.

She's literally right on a major bus route. It's a better part of the town for buses than where I live, and I manage!

In the UK at least, you need to be familiar with the unpredictable public transport timetables. Where I live the buses are not regular, depart at different “minutes” at seemingly random hours, and are all finished by 6pm.

Where I used to live - abroad - but also a rural village, buses were twice per hour always at :05 and :35 and ran like lubed clockwork. Predictable, dependable. And ran from 5am to after midnight !

I hate being without my car. Public transport where I live is shocking. My son attends a village first school which is a few miles away and not easily accessible by bus. Train services always cancelled.
Grew up very rurally and learned at 17 paid for by myself.
Your attitude feels a bit superior to be honest, most of us that drive do have our shit together and are functioning adults!
I genuinely had to have a few days off work once because my car was broken, work was an hours drive away, train station nowhere near and I couldnt afford the taxi fair. There was certainly no bus!
I'd hate to live my life without a car, what if there was an emergency and I had to get somewhere quickly, the autonomy a car gives you is amazing. More job opportunities in different areas and saves time. I don't really understand grown adults with kids that can't drive to be honest!

I agree OP.

Its the people who treat you like you are useless if you can’t drive even though it doesn’t effect them at all (I never ask for lifts and an more than capable of navigating myself around easily), but then when they have to be you for a day and not have a car they act like the world has ended, need a day of work, put out FB SOS messages etc.

I think that’s the problem - when they treat you like you can’t cope because you can’t drive (when you can), when the reality is actually the other way around, and they have limited life skills without their car.

The funniest I had was I had walked to somebody’s house to visit them, and the person I was visiting also didn’t drive, but she is one of those people who expects her DH to drive her everywhere even though she has nothing medically wrong with her and also is well off so can afford taxis etc. As her DH works in the week she said to me

’I’m glad you have visited, I would come and visit you, but I have no way of getting there’

Yes I would figure it out. But it would take a while to figure it out, I wouldn’t have an immediate solution at hand. I would give my month’s notice to use the breakfast club (if they had space, if they didn’t I guess I’d have to put my name on a waiting list for a childminder who is happy to take a disabled child). My point was that initially it would be stressful as my life with 3 kids, one disabled, and a full time job, is meticulously planned timing wise and my car is needed to keep all the balls rolling.

Are you really calling ppl cunts for having a transport preference?
Bit of an over reaction don’t you think?

OP, how lovely of MIL to take SIL shopping and whatnot, maybe they’ve just bonded more and enjoy the experience?

Maybe ask if MIL can do the same for you if it bothers you that much.

There's a bus near our house that is the only bus that goes from our village all the way up and through another nearby village. Great route, very handy as on the way it goes past a couple of major intersections where there are other buses (or trains) that then go on in other directions so it's useful to get from our village to somewhere you can then go on from.

Except, the bus runs roughly once an hour and even with that, is unreliable. It's infuriating. DS could use this bus to get to his sports activity, but he can't. Because if it comes on time, he's either very very early, or very very late. And if it doesn't come on time, he's sitting at a bus stop for up to 45 minutes.

The result is that the bus isn't a particularly well used route because none of us can rely on it.

Meanwhile, another bus around here does a loop and runs every 5-7 minutes. It is constantly PACKED. Why? because anyone who wants to get anywhere on that loop knows they can turn up at the bus stop and a bus will be along within a maximum of 7 minutes.

It's infuriating.

I live in a village with crappy public transport (one train a day) as it was a cheap area to buy a home.I had a car, but had my licence removed by a neurologist for 6 months. That was a surprise, and it was the longest six months. I had to arrange lifts to see my mum (in care home with dementia) as otherwise she'd had no visitors and feel abandoned, to get myself to hospital appointments at 5 different hospitals, to get prescriptions collected, to get my kids to their out of school clubs (cos, y'know it can help their mental health), to get them to the dentist, I had to get all my shopping delivered or picked up by husband on his way back from 12 hour shifts. Can't get flexible hours as front line NHS but he helped when he could. It was a logistical nightmare, which I really didn't need in the circumstances. Week after week after week of looking at calendars and imposing on other people. If I lived somewhere with public transport, brilliant, no problem using it, but I don't. I work 18 miles away, fortunately they were kind enough to let me WFH, without that I would also have lost my job. Being able to drive can be incredibly important. I may have read this thread on the wrong week (just after my 6 months ended) 🤔

Another perfectly capable of managing public transport if needs be. DH and I had one car between us for years so sometimes it was necessary. Getting to work on the bus was pretty straight forward - bus no 1 into town, a.ight at stop and get bus no 2 from the same stop to other side of town. Took 40-45 mins non stop. Getting home by bus was a nightmare. Bus no 2, from outside my work, to town, was a circular route and took twice as long in the evenings to get to the point where I changed to bus 1. Which I often had to wait a long time for. Journey home could take 1.5 hours or more for a 4.5 mile road journey.

Yes! exactly that! I am sick of being looked down on for not having a car as though I am some kind of loser, when I am educated, earn well and am able to bring up two children and run two business and a household.
Those same people fall to pieces and rely on others when they don't have a car, yet I'm the one who can't function properly apparently. It's ridiculous.
I also feel like they are so much more important than other road users. Look at the way cyclists are treated by some drivers, that thread the other week about drivers splashing pedestrians with puddles and not giving a toss, and drivers constantly parking over pavements.
So I will indulge in a little condensation today TYVM 😂

What a waste of money.

I know you say 'more people' not 'everyone' but I do find the pro cycling lobby to be lacking in empathy. Apart from the fact that many people aren't physically able to cycle, the places they live make it difficult. I live in the Pennines, it is extremely hilly. By that I mean practically cliff face type hilly. It is also frequently very wet and very windy. Roads are narrower, busy and twisty with many places where the view is obstructed. Frankly, around here, the only people I've seen on a bike at commuting time are the people who are clearly very fit and cycling is their (very outing) hobby.

In addition, in my small town, the kids in that bicycle trailer would be asphyxiated as the schools are located along the major road through the town which is the only route lorries and commercial vehicles can take between two other major towns in this area. It wouldn't look quite so picturesque if the kids were terrified by the lorries looming over them a couple of feet away.

The council have tried to do what they can but are very limited by the topography. I would like nothing more than to cycle more. If I want to cycle, unfortunately, I have to drive my bike somewhere to do it comfortably and safely.

@orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements well there you have it. Just because you live within walking distance of supermarkets and have cheap taxi fares doesn't mean everyone does. Doing small shops instead of one big one would add cost because of bus fares if not able to walk. I know non drivers have to eat, I was one, but my life was so much easier when I got a car. I've recently had a job which meant I had to get the bus there and back and it was shit. Never again.

I really don't understand grown adults with kids that can't get through life without motorised transport, but there you are

Sounds a bit like sour grapes OP. Are you a bit jealous that your MIL is so helpful towards your SIL? You seem to be getting your knickers in quite a twist over something that really doesn't concern you.

Yes, but you did get the bus there and back so you're not who I'm complaining about. You dealt with it. You found a way, however shit. You didn't moan on about it and expect everyone to feel sorry for you and drive you around and expect to turn up late for a week. Those are the people that are irritating me. Them and their sympathisers.

A tumble drier is easier than hanging up washing but if it broke you wouldn't get someone else to dry your clothes for you. You'd just hang them up.

It's not just about ease, it's about money.

I live semi-rurally with kids. If I don't have a car, to get to work would be a 20 min walk to the bus stop, a bus to the train station, a train to the city, a train from the city to the area I work in, then either another bus or a 40 min walk to work. And then back again.

To visit friends would be the same, as my friends live in different cities.

To go to the supermarket would be buses or taxi.

I couldn't afford the trains and buses. Especially not if I've just put diesel in the car when it breaks down lol.

I didn't say I couldn't get through life. I said I would hate to live my life without a car. Big difference.

It's annoying having to listen to her complaining and MIL saying that she has done this that and the other with SIL because she can't drive anywhere any more.
But actually the bigger picture is car culture in general. It's not good for society or our planet so be so incredibly reliant on them and it's annoying for people that don't drive having to carry the work of others when they can't get to work on time due to thinking they are too good for can't get a bus.