Comments because I don’t drive

[Waolom]

I’m 28. I don’t drive. I have no children. I do not mind the fact that I can’t drive one single bit. I enjoy sitting on public transport and switching off, listening to my music, I never ask anyone for a lift or to take me xyz place. In short, my inability to drive affects absolutely nobody but myself and I’m happy.

So why on earth do (some) drivers make it such a big deal and make comments when people can’t drive? I don’t ever ask for lifts so it just frustrates me when people comment on it as if I’m putting them out. I’m not.
AIBU to be fed up of these comments?

Neither my husband nor myself drive. We are now in our fifties.

We've never lived in a big city, but do live where public transport is reasonable. I have only ever heard negativity about it on MN, to be honest.
Friends and family don't give us lifts. We use buses and trains and people who earn their living driving people around. If I was meeting friends somewhere out of the way, I'd get a taxi. I thought that was what most people did. Often I'm sharing it because others want to have a drink.
As to the 'selfish' argument, no, I won't be able to take my Mum shopping when she can't get there on her own but a) we live in an age where home delivery exists and I can help her order online, b) again I can use the services of people who earn their living by driving, and c) I am pretty sure those of you with cars don't all live close to your parents, so I'm guessing you are upping sticks and moving when your unselfish driving services are needed, or you are driving five hour round trips to take your mum shopping. No? How selfish of you. I, meanwhile, moved to be nearer to my mother as she ages. My brother, who lives two hours away and drives, visits once a year if that.

I give to my family and friends in other ways. They've never needed me to drive them anywhere, but I have still managed to help them move house, support them through illness and mental health issues, etc. I've never needed them to drive me anywhere, but I hope in the unlikely event I ever would, they wouldn't act as though it's some massive burden imposed upon them by somebody who has nothing to offer them in return simply because she can't drive.

Driving is not the only way you can be of service to others. And I would like to think, when I'm helping my mother with her garden and house, and supporting her through her worsening dementia, my driving family members who all live hours away aren't thinking how selfish I am because I can't drive her to the shops or a hospital appointment.

Back when fewer people could afford a car, somehow people managed to navigate life's little emergencies. I wonder why we find it so hard now? And I don't think the answer is just about public transport. I think we've become much more lazy and much less capable.

I'm confused by that too.

I wear smart office clothing and I have no difficulty walking in it.

Back in the day, I kept heels in the office, these days flats are fine so I don't need to do that either

This is an essay😃. A very good essay, though, and you're absolutely right. It's crazy how many pps think not driving is selfish.

Your bf is judged in late 30s? I had a comment about not driving at 24! Learned at 25. Very strange that people feel they have a right to judge. Or that they care enough to judge.

I couldn't sleep, lol.

My husband used to cycle to work. Rain or shine, every day for years, a 20 mile round trip. He used to change when he got there.

I have a child and neither me nor DH drive. We live in greater London so good transport links and plenty of Ubers if we can't get there by public transport.
I have no desire to live somewhere issolated rural and I work in retail so unlikely to be somewhere with no transport links!
There is very little that can't be delivered or collected (eg dump runs).
I never ask for lifts eirther but people do look at you funny when you say you don't drive.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It wasn't so much that I couldn't walk in them, more so impractical. I agree I could have done what others have said and carried a change of clothes to work, but when I worked in an office I already had a briefcase with my laptop and a lot of paperwork in, I'd then need a backpack with my change of clothes/shoes in, plus other 'freshening up' items. I did it a couple of times, but it was so unpleasant it was just not worth it. If I wore trousers I'd have to tuck them into my socks so that I didn't arrive at work with mud all splashed up them in the colder months. I'd always arrive dishevelled and stressed. I was in a city but where I worked was on a business complex involving dual carriageway crossings etc, just unsafe, no pavements in places. I quickly resigned to driving to work and arriving feeling fresh and ready. It was a pain in the rear having to get changed twice too. And then having a bunch of muddy clothes to deal with. Nice idea in theory but just not practical for me at the time. I WFH now, but I still would very much dislike life without driving. My car was 'up on blocks' for a few months a couple of years ago and I was lost, asking for lifts made me feel like a nuisance and every appointment took twice as long to get to (at least) via public transport. Didn't like being unable to just nip out to the shop etc. Plus I felt unsafe walking home from places at night.

I presume no one in your household or wider family don’t drive 🤷🏼‍♀️

My dd 30 hasn't learnt to drive. I have done everything. She is just not interested. She lives in a city and walks miles which she loves or takes public transport. Every time she comes home l have to bite my tongue not to make suggestions about driving. The latest is driving an automatic. My other dc all drive and l did hours of practice etc until they had their license. I feel my parenting is not finished until she drives as she will need to drive with dc in the future, it hinders jobs she can apply for etc. It drives me MAD!!

I've got a full license but I no longer drive. It is too frightening on the roads these days. Most people seem to forget what it says in the Highway Code the minute they pass their tests. My car's brakes failed a week before the MoT and I thought it's not worth spending money on an old car if they find something else expensive in the MoT. I worked out how much it was costing me to drive and when you take into account tax, insurance, MoT and AA, it just wasn't worth it for the mileage I was doing. So with much relief I scrapped the car. I do miss being able to go away at the drop of a hat or being able to pick up something heavy from the garden centre, but it's still not worth the cost and anxiety of getting another. Travelling by bus or train is so much more relaxing and you can actually enjoy seeing the countryside you pass through and not having to find parking at the other end that doesn't involve yet another app that doesn't work. It's not ideal but if you prefer not driving it's entirely up to you and nobody else's business. Though having said all that I think it's better that young people learn to drive so that they can have a choice of whether to drive or not throughout their lives.And they might need it for work.

I learned when I was 17, had some very bad luck with car crashes (not my fault) which put me off driving much in my youth, and then spent my twenties and thirties living in city centres where having a car wouldn’t have made any sense.

I then moved somewhere a bit more suburban, bit the bullet and bought a car and relearned to drive. I don’t really enjoy it but it is helpful and useful in many ways. However, I can go weeks without feeling the need to drive as I commute to work by public transport, and for long trips I often find it far more relaxing and enjoyable to go by train unless there’s some merit to having a car at my destination.

As someone who can and does drive but who has spent most of her adult life not doing so, I always find these conversations so weirdly polarising. Like you can only be someone who drives everywhere and is obsessed with their car, or someone who doesn’t drive at all and constantly asks friends for lifts.

I do have a few friends who started driving at 17 and became over-reliant on their cars, IMO. I stayed with a friend recently who lives just outside a city centre and didn’t even know if the 10-minute bus from her doorstep into town take contactless because she has never taken it, she always drives. Now that I found odd!

I’m like @MyPinkOtterin lots of ways - I can drive, learned at 17, but have gone long periods without a car of my own and not even using what I had access to. A criterion when we moved house (24 years ago!) was it needed to be on good public transport routes. DH cycles to work (and used to bring DD to Creche on the back until primary school). I use public transport as parking is ridiculous. Where I currently am based on an overseas posting, I didn’t get a car for the 1st 18 months and just used buses, trains, taxis, community rental cars, and once rented a car (easy to do). Trains here are great so I was going to other cities and even other countries on adventures by train a fair bit. I now have a car but it still sits in my parking space almost all the time - I use it for food shopping on big stores restock weeks (I have a wheelie trolley for the metro about 3 weeks out of 4), or to go to some adventures that are easier by car. I’ve driven to the airport once (here), and that was because DD needed to take the car and our flights were crossing over and we wouldn’t otherwise see each other - but the train from the airport is really convenient for me.

My family (parents, siblings etc) cannot understand how I didn’t have a car of my own for the first 7 years after I left home and was working, and how I dropped it again when DH was working away (we shared his car both times). But we are good at sharing, and we had made the calculations that, given our family needs, using taxis on occasion when public transport didn’t work, and renting a car if we had times where both of us needed a car (rental agency 20 minutes walk from home), worked out cheaper than maintaining and insuring and taxing a second car even though we had no car loan on top.

So while I am not a “no car, can’t drive” person, I am definitely not at the other end of the spectrum.

That could've been me! I got on a bus for the first time in over a decade a couple of years ago. I was meeting friends in the city where parking would have cost a bomb (if I could even find any)and everyone planned on having a boozy lunch too so the bus made more sense. I hadn't a clue what to do once I got on 😆

It wasn't an issue, I had card and cash but I did have to ask the driver how you usually paid and how much it was etc. Some folk may have found that weird.

I can see how this makes sense if you have access to a car but don't need one all of the time, and other transport options are available.

There's a hire car place 20 mins drive from me too and I actually considered it when my own car was in the garage and I had a rare day of working not from home coming up.

I needed it for the Thursday, which meant I would need to collect it on the Wednesday and return it on Thurs eve.

It would have cost me £140.

I would have to get a lift to collect it (not on a bus route).

I finished work at 16:30 and the hire place closed at 17:00.

I decided that as I only worked 25 minutes away, whoever was going to give me a lift to collect the hire car may as well just take me to work in the first place. Same if I had have had to get a taxi.

Finishing within half an hour of closing, given rush hour traffic, was cutting it very fine.

£130 is a lot of money for a journey to work and back for one day. Taxis would've only been £50 or so.

Just not practical as well as extortionate.

Could you have cycled?

Why? Is she always pestering you for lifts? Is she unemployed?

If she's in work, no longer lives with you, etc, it's none of your business. It won't be your business when/if she has children, either. She'll work out what she needs for herself.

Not wanting to drive and working out how to live without it isn't anybody's 'failure'. I don't understand why you assume at 30 she hasn't weighed a lot of this up for herself.

By her age, I'd been living away from home since 18, had a mortgage, a happy marriage and a good job. I would be really disappointed if my parents considered they had 'failed' because of one thing I couldn't (and still can't) do. I would be hurt if I thought they thought so little of me and my ability to think for myself, to be honest.

I don't think my car-driving friends and siblings are doing so much better for themselves. In fact, I paid off my mortgage at the youngest age of all of us, I've travelled more than most of them, had more career variety to boot.

I still remember someone at work years ago saying about his Sunday drives when I was stuck with local scenery. That year I went to Hawaii. The furthest he'd ever been was Weston Super Mare...

Like this?

All of that's fine. Really, it is. Until you need lifts from people....

You are right in saying its none of my business so that is why l bite my lip but because l taught the others and put so much work into their driving l feel l missed her out. But she didn't want to. She does ask me for lifts as we live out the country and trains etc only come to local town but l never mind as l am always so glad to see her. I would never refuse ,of course .

People always seem to feel the need to make a big deal about things that are different/unusual. Conformity to certain things is the norm, and anything different is seen as outlandish and bizarre. YANBU to be fed up of the comments; they get very repetitive and it's boring having the same questions and comments fired at you on a regular basis.

I was late learning to drive, due to low confidence and lack of self-esteem. I used to like being able to put my earphones in, or having a lot of time to read my books! Not driving wasn't really a problem until I started looking for a job. These days, I couldn't live where I do if I couldn't drive, as it's very rural, the nearest train stations are at least 40 minutes away, local buses are every few hours, and the nearest town's taxi rank consists of one car!

You're lucky to live in an area with such good public transport!

@Simonjt
No it’s just staggering that as a grown adult, he has avoided such a responsibility. Being able to tackle a motorway in torrential downpours so heavy that all you can see is rain, well that’s a skill that is part of being an adult in today’s society. Also you never do know what life will throw at you and there will always be a time when you need to drop everything, hop in the car and whizz somewhere as quickly as you can when every single second counts; a family emergency for example. A situation whereby waiting for a taxi/running to a tube station etc is just not feasible.
Having to take a poorly child to the doctors without dragging them on & off public transport whilst ill or having to wait for taxis. Supermarket shopping when you can’t get a delivery slot.
For me personally, I’m disabled and rely solely on my car to get around. I’d be reliant on expensive taxis if I didn’t have my car. The nearest bus stop is simply too far away. I also now need to drive my mum around as she can no longer drive due to her sudden vision loss. I honestly don’t know what she would do if I didn’t have a car. She’d lose every last scrap of her independence, most likely.

@junebirthdaygirl Walking is good for her. One of the best ways to reduce stress, as opposed to driving, which can raise stress levels. Using public transport is better for the environment than driving. Why do you think she'll have to drive if she has children? My own parents had 4 children and no car. My mother finally got a car and learned to drive at age 57, after we'd all grown up. I can drive, but never drove my children around. They used their legs.

I did have to drop everything and take my child to A&E before I could drive. A taxi was still feasible and came within 5 minutes and was probably the better option than me 'whizzing' to the hospital driving in a panic.

People who can't drive tend to build their life around that such as never living too far away from a bus stop, been organised enough if they rely on online shopping deliveries and making sure taxis in their area are plentiful. Even driving now, I live 2 minutes away from the nearest bus stop and can still get a taxi in 5 minutes.

My son now has regular hospital appointments which is why I learned how to drive. Before that, I was content and didn't find driving to be necessary.

@MyCottageGarden Well, it's true that you don't know what life will bring, but it may bring something that makes driving impossible. So any of us could find ourselves having to navigate life without cars, and many people can't afford cars in the first place. There's nothing 'adult' about driving. Many responsible adults never manage to learn. Most people would agree a doctor's job is a fairly adult job, yet I've known doctors who couldn't drive. As for driving on a motorway in torrential rain, most drivers don't do so safely. They drive too quickly and without leaving enough of a gap. Very rarely do you see responsible behaviour here, or on any roads, come to that. The behaviour we witness on our roads is very far from adult.