to not want to learn to drive

[Bigmouthstrikesagain]

as I am beginning to think I might have too and I really do not want to!

I don't like cars, My parents couldn't drive only one of my 5 siblings can drive. my dh does drive and we own a car.

We barely use our car as dh commutes by train and we don't always ude car at weekend but we live in an area where if we couldn't drive at all life would be difficult. With 3 children aged between 18m and 5 using public transport is challenging but not impossible, the main problem is the lack of buses and direct bus routes to where we would like to go. We have excellent links by train into London.

So the pressure is on me to learn how to drive to ferry the children around when required and to be able to drive to work myself when I want to return to that world. I am scared by the responsibility of driving, have no experience or affinity with cars, have environmental concerns about cars, don't want to increase my carbon footprint. But I am aware that I am no longer a city girl and the bus/train alternative does not cover all the trips I would/ could make in a car.

I am a transport planner (pre-children) and although my field is Public transport I am quite sure that if I want to work outside a city I will need transport and be expected to drive. I have considered lying (my father did 30 years ago when he told his new employers that 'of course' he could drive then he let the company car rot in our garage - a family of mice moved in - while he got to all his meetings by bus!)but dh keeps telling me about all the problems I would solve by being able to drive...

Am I kidding myself that an adult can manage outside a city w/out being able to drive?

Valpollicella - glad to read that having problems with spatial awareness you made a sensible decision not to drive. The thing is, I did drive for a while but it was only after about 6 months that I realised I had this problem. Like you citybranch, I have absolutely no problem handling a complicated/large/fast vehicle like a car, truck, tractor, combine harvester but my problem is that I cannot do it at the same time as figuring out where I am going and what other drivers are doing. In your train driving on a steel rail with signals and general order you can handle that well. I guess I would too. There are people who really should not be driving and I am one of them.

Bigmouth - I agree wih you about being organised. So many people seem to jump in their car to make multiple small journeys without thinking or will not consider public transport even if it is available. We do pretty much all our shopping online or combine seveal journeys into one big one. I walk a lot to so stay fit.

While people talk about the lack of freedom and limited choices. In reality, not having a car only limits our choice about 2 - 3 times a year - which we solve by getting a taxi. We save a fortune. The amount of money and stress we avoided by not having a car is huge. When we had a car in London we were never just spontaneoulsy driving to exciting places either. We did used to do that on a plane though with the money we saved!

Your DCs will have to get used to the dea that Mum is not a taxi. My view is parents make a rod for their own back with this issue once teenagers arrive.

The final point I would make is I wonder what all the car drivers on here intend to do when they get to age 75? Will they continue drivng dangerously like my FIL? I see a lot of old peole now driving who should not be.They continue to do so because they live too far from public transport. I really worry about my mother in this respect if my Dad died or became ill so he could not drive.

I firmly believe that there is a large amount of threads on AIBU that wouldn;t be here if some people could drive.

There are a lot of things like (and I'm paraphrasing so please don;t think I'm referring to a specific thread) - "The school have just phoned...DS seems to be a little off colour but not very. AIBU not to go and get him considering its a 90 minute round trip and I have to take 2 buses with my 18 month old twins..."

Or "I'd love to leave my twunt of a husband but I can't take all my possessions to my Mum;s in a train"

or "DH is lying hungover and being an idiot - I have no milk or nappies of sanitarty protestion" - "Well go to the supermarket" - "I can't, I don;t drive and we live 18 miles up a dirt track and we have no buses in this county"...

That type of thing...

Honestly, unless there is an actual medical reason, then it would make your life easier and a lot of your reasons sound like you are trying to convince yourself.

YANBU.

I live right out in the sticks, and don't drive. There are buses into the nearest town once an hour Mon-Sat, and that does me just fine. I have 3 children and work.

We do the food shopping on a Sunday, when DH is at home with the car. If we lived close enough to a Tesco I would probably just have it delivered, but the nearest one is about 40 miles away.

My children still manage to do activities, the eldest plays football and the piano every week.

Driving has just never interested me. I have a provisional license, and am on the insurance of the car as DH thinks I should learn, but I'm planning to hold out as long as I can

Me too agree. We have finally succumbed and bought a car so that we can visit my terminally ill MIL in her rural nursing home (chosen out of necessity because it had the facilities she needs); there is no way we would have done it just so my children could go to a netball match- I'd just tell them they had to play something else instead.

Yes, it would have been a shame not to reach national level at swimming for the girl in the other post- but lots of people grow up where that wouldn't be possible even with a car because there aren't the facilities within driving distance. Should we all feel guilty because there might be one activity somewhere in the world that our children cannot do?

There are no ski slopes anywhere near where I live in the south of England. Should I be consumed with guilt because ds might just be missing out on a chance to become the world's next toboganning champion? Or should I perhaps just ask him to accept that life is full of limitations?

I don't drive due to medical reasons, but I sure wish I could. Go ahead and take lessons and maybe you will slowly get used to driving on quiet roads. Good for an emergency too.
Good luck!

I had my children without being able to drive. I managed, yes. I struggled with shopping and a pram on public transport or have had to walk in the rain/snow.

I passed my driving test nearly a year ago now and it is quite honestly the best thing I have ever done.

So many things are more open to me now, I can take the children to more places in the holidays, I have renewed my Gym memebership as before it ended up taking nearly 3 hours out of my day by the time I had walked there and back, now its an hour!

I feel I have so much more independence but its more the fact of how much more you can fit in a day not having to worry about public transport timetables!

My mother never chose to drive. she used the bus and did local shopping and then she and dad did a big weekend shop. We all used buses until we grew up and left home. I moved to london and didn't learn to drive until i had my children in my 30s

Then my dad died. Mum is now trapped at home. She isn't strong enough to carry much shopping so is obliged to walk to the nearest Tesco ( the local food stores have mostly shut replaced by charity shops and phone stores), she can't visist anywhere unless someone goes and gets her and takes her.
She is still very active and very bright but just a bit wary of using trains on her own so she can't do that. She is losing some of her fitness and the gym she used to go to shut and whilst she walks everywhere she was ebnefiting from have a programme of excercises for her knees. She is eating more as she is stuck inside so much....Even her GP appts are a long walk for her now.

I had rational reasons for not learning and I still don't drive unless I have to.
But i think that my mums situation is sad. the ability to drive now would be literally life changing for her.
I wish I had tried harder to talk her into it

As the wife of someone who hasn't learnt to drive yet, due to some eyesight issues which are thankfully being resolved, I think YABU.

It sucks to be the only driver in the family and not being able to share driving duties, but always being the one who sticks to the diet coke in the pub at the end of a nice day out, always being the one who has to do the nursery run, which conveniently adds another hour on the commute etc etc.

Bigmouth, YANBU but honestly, just go for it. I was in just your situation (parents never drove) and terrified of cars, the responsibility etc. I told myself it was an environmental thing too but that was a crock really - I was just scared.

Then I had to learn for work and while I'm not the most confident driver in the world, I can do it and it's not that bad, really.

DH still drives mostly, if we're together, but if I need to I can, and that's what matters. I still prefer public transport if at all practical

i don't drive often and i don't own a car (DP does) and never have done.

i don't like driving because of the environment (and not just the pollution, also the roads being busy and traffic jams making the town a less nice place to walk or cycle) i like to cycle or walk and am happy to take the bus or train.

BUT i CAN drive. i learned at the end of uni so that not driving wouldn't limit my job chances. in the end i've never had to drive but i can and i am on DPs insurance and a few times it's come in very handy.

i am glad i learned.

i think you should be free to say you don't want to drive but i am a litle unsettled by your assumption you won't be able to do it well. i would suggest that you have some lessons and see how you go. it is a skill worth having.

YANBU. I wish there were wider recognition that driving isn't for everyone, and I have no idea why we try and force people into driving when there's very little else similar that we force them into.

I learned when I was 18, under sufferance and so that I could drive someone to hospital if need be - I haven't driven for over 15 years, though, so would probably end up putting more people in hospital if I tried. I have no idea where my licence is.

I hate driving with a passion and am so, so glad that I don't have to do it. I have slow reactions, am prone to absentmindedness, and am, quite frankly, a terrible driver. I did pass my test after 4 goes, but that was because I knew the town and routes like the back of my hand. As soon as I started driving in places I didn' know, I was prone to doing very stupid things (driving my friends the wrong way round a roundabout was the worst - fortunately the person in the passenger seat grabbed the wheel...)

I'm lucky in that I live in a country with very good public transport (in a city with a lot of traffic and a lot of bad drivers, so DH doesn't particularly want to drive here, either). DH doesn't mind, and we don't have a car, although we periodically talk about getting one. My mother used to nag me frequently, but I think now realises that it really is non-negotiable.

I shouldn't be counting myself lucky, though - public transport should be like this for everyone.

Bathsheba, but aren't a lot of those messages from people whose DH has the car at the time? How many families can afford two cars, let alone one?

sorry, "can afford two cars - lots can't afford one." That makes more sense...

I was petrified about learning to drive and put it off for a loooong time. I too have terrible spatial awareness and hated the idea of driving.

But I forced myself to learn before DC2 and am so SO glad I did. It makes life with two kids infinitely easier and actually I love driving now and hardly ever let DH behind the wheel! Honestly I wish I had bitten the bullet and learned years ago.

Wow a vast array of opinions here - but first let me get the helpful comment from Echt out of the way. as it is irritating me.

I am aware that 'larger families' are terribly unsound ecologically - but am not going to get rid of one of my children to salve my guilt however I do feel more comfortable with reducing car journey's raising my children as vegetarians and never going abroad 'k!

Right - there are still good arguements for and against here.

Riven - yes we can afford lessons if required - but the increased petrol usage doesn't appeal as currently we get away with £60 every couple of months to fill the tank.

I do think that modern society has grown around the assumption that people will drive and I don't think it is necessarily a good thing. I don't think I am a hypocrite to accept lifts on occasion - merely a realist. I would be lying if I said I had never sat on a platform in the cold and rain - wishing I could drive but like the pain of childbirth the memory fades and it is good for the children as they love buses and trains and walking everywhere (as I am the pack horse carrying the drinks/ snacks tissues toys etc.) - but I love the process of planning train journeys - booking in advance, finding the cheapest tickets and getting to where you need to go - w/out a car does feel good (aware that is a wierd quirk as my dh thinks I am bonkers!).

So I think I am in the end going to have to drive but I am mourning the passing of my militant pedestrian status - raging against it even. Such is life

If you can afford to have lessons why not try it and see how you get on? The idea of it might be much worse than the reality.

I was petrified of driving and put it off. That was fine when we lived in London, but it came to be a real PITA when we moved outside. What swung it for me in the end was realising that it was so unfair on dh to waste half his weekend taking me to places that I couldn't get to by public transport, being the desginated driver if we went out, and doing all the dull but necessary trips (DIY store, dump etc).

"Yes, it would have been a shame not to reach national level at swimming for the girl in the other post- but lots of people grow up where that wouldn't be possible even with a car because there aren't the facilities within driving distance. Should we all feel guilty because there might be one activity somewhere in the world that our children cannot do? "

Personally, I would not like my child to miss out on the opportunity to really excel at something due to a really small matter such as me not driving. Especially true, if, like this child, they are not going to set the world alight with their intellect.

I think the tobogganing parallel is wrong because your son would never do toboganning enough to know he was any good at it, whereas this girl was leaving girls 3 years older than her for dead in races so she knew she was good. It's watching potential go to waste that's sad.

For me, that would tip the balance between driving and not driving.

What about the opportunities and experiences you miss by driving? I am sure dh will be the one ferrying children around where required - this is not a car free driver free household. But they experience differnt aspects of the world through waiting at bus stops - long conversations with older people for instance - my dd in particular is a great favourite with penshioners in our area as we are always available for chats! She enjoys talking to them as much as they enjoy her.

Learn to drive and stop making up excuses.

Amazingly you can still go for walks and talk to pensioners when you can drive. You don't always need to take the car.