To be p*ssed off that people think I'm odd for being 30 and not driving?

[OracleInaCoracle]

I like public transport. ds loves trains and the bus may take longer, but he sees more of our town than he would in a car.

running a car is bloody expensive.

we should all be reducing our carbon footprint, this is one of my contributions.

we walk, a LOT. ds is very fit and healthy and sees/hears/smells things first hand.

i CHOOSE not to drive, it is not a rite of passage or a necessity, so less of the shock please!

lissie, I'm not sure that our great grandmothers would have agreed that fridges are necessities....

[facetious for the sake of it emoticon]

not odd at all but being able to drive is a life skill and you might regret it later - my mum doesn't drive and is totally isolated, relying on other people to get her around.

I love driving btw

[hooting wth laughter @ being called both a "stupid mundane" and "lazy and precious" in one post]

Bravo madamez, bravo

I live in London but only properly learnt to drive when I was pregnant with DD2 - it was getting too hard to get to where I wanted to go with a double buggy and I could no longer jump in and out of taxis with DD1 in her first car seat and didn't feel safe with two such small children in a taxi without them being in proper car seats.

I don't think it's odd if people haven't learned to drive though ... they just obviously hadn't had the need to; the desire to; or, the money to do so.

I think it's unusual, but I wouldn't think to pass comment about someone unconnected to me who doesn't drive. However my DH doesn't drive and it pisses me off. He has never driven (except for a few driving lessons a couple of decades ago).

It doesn't affect our daily routine much, but that's because we have arranged our lifestyle to fit around his lack of driving, and also because I just refuse to drive him if I don't want to. In fact I don't even drive much, our car has done 8,000 miles in 5 years. We are moving to Dublin in a year or two and we will have a limited choice of locations to live in as public transport isn't great there. He keeps saying that he would like to live in a rural location, but that would mean that I would have sole responsibility for getting ds and dh around and running errands or doing the shopping, so he can stuff his rural idyll.

Although I love him very much at the time that we started going out there was an assumption on my part and an intention on his part that he would learn to drive, and I can't help but think less of him that he hasn't bothered.

pmsl @ greatgrandmothers nomdeplume

I know how to drive and regularly drive in England, but no longer really do so in Paris (am however perfectly capable of driving either left or right hand drive cars and switch with ease).

I think it's a great pity not to learn to drive when one is young - it's an essential life skill in the modern world. However, depending on where/how you live, it may be more convenient to walk or take public transport.

Good on you, I have a license but hate driving (for various reasons) and so don't. I use public transport. My dh has never learned. I know people think we are odd, but tough!!!

I'm well over 30 (although in my mind I'm 21 ) and I dont drive, I learnt, passed my test (first go ) got a licence and eveything just hate it so dont do it. Only have 1 car anyway not buying another and even if we did I couldnt afford to run 2.

'and one of the reasons that public transport is poor (because it can be) is because people dont use it. several bus routes have been closed down around here because they are no longer financially viable. use it or lose it! '

It's actually mostly because of privitisation. consequently, transport is now seen by many who offer it as an endeavour from which to squeeze the maximum profit, rather than an essential service.

hence, not financially viable may in fact not have much to do with ridership but with rising fuel costs or other costs of doing business - employees wanting more pay, laws regulating transport eating into profits, etc.

but surely if more people used those buses they would make more money, thus making them more financially attractive.

not necessarily, as 'financially viable' may mean something very different to a business as to you and me, particularly when a business is offering the service across a large area and needs to cut costs in order to maximise profit.

you see this happen even in large cities, edinburgh, for example, where ridership is very high.

routes are cut or schedules/times are cut as fuel costs rise, employees stage strike action to get pay increases (something i support, btw), etc.

plenty of ridership, just statistically a way to cut costs.

I have elderly relatives who cannot drive and they are TOTALLY dependent on other people for hospital appointments, shopping, emergencies. Beign able to drive gives you freedom for your WHOLE LIFE, and as you get older it gets more important (and harder to learn). I wouldn't want to be dependent on other people in my old age.

I didn't learn until i was over 30. Cycled everywhere rough snow, rain and sun.

Driving is so much easier but I have started cycling again recently and there are things you get from other forms of transport which you just don't get when driving.

Driving offers more freedom at the drop of a hat (if you can afford to keep a car on the road) but it's not the be all and end all.

that's right morninpgaper, just like my mum

fair point expat.

mp, my pil's dont drive, are in their 60's and get public transport or walk everywhere. people coped perfectly well without cars even as recently as 20 years ago.

mm, mp you see my experience is the contrary. my mum at 70 now very rarely drives anywhere - she walks, gets buses or taxis for hospital/osteopath etc, takes the train to gad about the country. she is utterly self-reliant and chooses not to drive.

I have relatives who have moved to Spain - largely for health reasons TBH - and they are totally dependent on the car - but only one of them can drive! So if anythign happened to the driver, the non-driver would be utterly shafted and would have to sell her house and move back to the UK. And not rural UK, which is a shame, because they have always lived in rural areas.

I don't understand why anyone would NOT want to learn to drive a car. They are really, sort of, USEFUL...

driving is a necessary life skill.
not driving is a life choice

Yes you can cope without cars if you have lots of local shops and services and friends/family nearby. But there aren't many people in that situation.

And when your children grow up and have families think of all the help you could be if you had a car! Nursery runs, school runs, emergencies, visiting etc.....

Nomdeplume, not dependant upon any of those machines, though, am I? They are in the main luxury goods. I have lived for some time without all of the things on that list before now. Did have a camping gas ring for cooking, so that's prolly cheating

They also, except the bus, not modes of transport so rather off topic, but nice try.

Car drivers are going to have to change the way they rely on their cars in future.

My car mad MIL actually likes getting buses now she has her free pass. She just can't see how I can go anywhere with children without a car which I find odd.

It's sort of like never having learnt to use the phone

It's just an ODD principle to hold IMO

Yeah, right MP. So elderly people with angina, cataracts, early-stage alzheimers and slow reactions would be just fine if they only got themselves a nice little chelsea tractor?