Driving- How can parents survive without it?

[graceM]

I only ask as I find it hard to understand why so many parents in this day and age do not drive! Surely as a parent of sometimes many children, driving would be essential? I mean I have three children at three different schools/nursery and it would be impossible for me to get them there without the use of a car.

Now I know not everyone has three/four/five children but still, even with one or two children life would be so much simpler if one or both parents can drive? I get so fed up of seeing mums of a morning dragging their kids to the bus stop to do the school run especially in this cold weather and have found myself wondering why they just done learn to drive! Surely it's not fair for kids to be dragged around on public transport day in day out when it's freezing? So what are your thoughts, is driving essential to you and your daily life?

I didn't learn to drive until dd was 6 and ds was 2.

I took dd to school on the bus and picked her up every day for 18 months. In rain, snow and wind. And do you know what, we loved it. DS was snuggled in the sling and DD walked beside me and we talked, laughed, played games, read books on the bus, avoided the ridiculous rage and games of the school run car race. DD positively misses the bus to school and we still take it sometimes because it's lovely time spent together as a family. The people on the bus are a community within themselves. They cooed over the baby, told stories to dd, chatted and helped out.

How rude of you to pity people who may have no other choice or may be happy with their choice.

Happily, I put coats/hats/gloves/scarves as appropriate on the children and living in England, that's sufficient in most weather.

Buses, trains and taxis!

I'm in my 30s, have lived in many places around the UK including the north where places are further apart (low population density), and the only times I have wished I could drive and had a car was so we could take DD to a zoo - she'd love it. But that's it.

What does annoy me though are people who say it's irresponsible to have children without a car in case if medical emergencies. Mainly on MN tbh. I personally would rather use an ambulance in a medical emergency....

Soontobesix - We always managed different activities, and peoples houses on foot

'Surely it's not fair for kids to be dragged around on public transport day in day out when it's freezing? '

You wrap them up warmly and they learn all sorts of essential skills whilst still quite young. I think it's unfair that so many primary children are fat and generally unhealthy because they rarely walk for any sustained lengthof time. It's a modern scandal when an overweight late middle-aged teacher like me can outwalk a third of her class.
Yes, I can drive. I learnt when DD was 4 and I was pregnant. Up until that point, we'd managed very well without a car.

Train holidays are the best! I base my holidays around trains. We've been to the Himalayas, the Scottish highlands, Cornwall. .. planning Europe next.

Holidays are sometimes tricky, and more limited, although we used to go and stay in a static caravan near Whitby. Train from York, change at Scarborough, number 5 bus to the caravan site if you're asking!
Actually, we have been to stay in a few cottages in Devon and Dorset too. Trains, local buses usually.
You just have to be more organised. You take what you absolutely need,not loads of extra stuff. In Devon the place we stayed they had beach windbreakers, picnic blankets, beach balls etc, so no need to bring those.

For day trips, living in the Yorkshire dales, we got the special summer service buses which go all over, and are full of nice old ladies and gents to fuss over your LO and feed you cake.
I don't miss standing at bus stops, but I do miss the long school walks sometimes like a pp, had the best talks.

I learned to drive when I was pregnant with my first DC because we had moved to the suburbs with a crap bus service and I didn't feel I had much choice.

I was blissfully happy when I lived in a busy town where most things were walking distance and buses ran frequently and went everywhere and would quite happily live there again with no car now I have DC.

I think you must have to have quite a limited imagination if you think driving is the be all and end all.

Personally I think driving is a bloody faff with kids in tow, especially when they're little and it's all in and out of car seats, buggy in and out of car etc etc and did and would always walk whenever I can.

Oh, and my parents live 200 miles away and I take the DC to visit them on the train rather than drive and it is SO much easier than being stuck on a motorway with them needing the toilet/snacks/drinks/colouring books.

My mum walked my children to school, and when the eldest went to secondary, she travelled with friends. On foot.
Driving is a very useful skill, I couldn't do my job without a car. But I have a number of friends who don't drive, and I'd never be as blinkered as the OP about it. To get fed up by someone else's choices?
'How can you possibly manage without...?' is a question from a rather limited mind.

That's why I live in a city. DC do 8 activities, & the furthest away is swimming - a 10 min bike ride.

I am learning how to drive at the moment but even when I have a car we will use the bus to go to nursery. If I drove it would cost me £8 to park near my work each day. The bus is a couple of quid.

Most children can survive a bit of time in the cold you know. They aren't all dainty flowers who wither in a slight chill

I don't have a car - I live in a city and it would be a stupid waste of money and effort. My DS went from the age of 4 to a primary 40 mins walk away, so he walked 40 mins every morning with me to school. And you know what? It was great. He got exercise every day, we had some quality chatting time, and best of all, he started school already having had quite a bit of physical exercise and jumping about, so ready to sit down and settle into working.

He learned very early on that walking somewhere wasn't a big tragedy - it wouldn't occur to him to whinge about walking somewhere, when lots of his friends do. There's no such thing as poor walking weather, just inadequate clothing.

And he also learned to navigate public transport very early with me. He was an early reader, not because I'm a particularly good parent or he's a genius, but because on walks or on the tube or a bus, you are surrounded by words - shop signs, adverts, things painted on the road - and he got curious about them all. Now he's old enough to make short trips by himself (eg to his secondary school), tube maps and bus maps hold no terrors for him at all. He's been able to navigate the tube for years, now.

On the very few occasions we do need a car - eg transporting stuff too heavy for me to take on a bus - we take a cab. And get there quicker than people who have driven their own cars, as we can use the bus lanes.

I think it wouldn't have been fair on him to teach him that he's helpless without a car. I don't think it's fair on him or all the other children to make pointless car journeys and screw up the planet more than we already have. I don't think it would have been fair on him to have deprived him of exploring where we live in favour of sitting in a stuffy metal box, just for my own convenience. I don't think it's fair on him to contribute to poor air quality where we live.

I was working on my sister's front garden in suburbia a while back, and watched in amazement as the next door neighbour put her small (perfectly able) DS in her people-carrier and took him to school, and returned a few minutes later. I happen to know this child's school is in the same street as the one where they live. That's my notion of being unfair to a child, OP.

I honestly think that attitudes like the OPs can kill - many children are becoming chronically inactive and the inability to walk a few miles to town and back has disastrous long term consequences. Two hours a week doing "Exercise" doesn't really counter the impact of sedentary habits for the other 110 waking hours.

Anyway, the simple answer is that we don't need to drive because we live in London. As it happens DH can drive and we do have occasional access to a car - it does make UK countryside holidays much easier, but apart from that we don't use it.

Are you serious? I don't drive. I am unable to on eyesight grounds. I have two (shortly to be three) children. We manage. It's not ideal, but we work life around the limitations of no car. Children go to schools / nurseries / swimming lessons / gym class etc etc within walking distance or busable. We take occasional taxis when we need to. We live in a place where we don't need to trek miles to get to after school activities etc, it's all fairly accessible. Sure there are some things we can't do but that's life.

The children are not deprived or abused because we have no car.

You work your life around having a car. We work ours around not having one. It works for us, as your lifestyle does for you. Each to their own!

I live in London, we have 2 train stations, tube, bus stops and tram stops all within easy reach. DD's school is a 5 minute walk away, my work is about a 15 minute walk. It would be pointless for me to own a car, it'd just be left on the drive all week, maybe used occasionally at the weekend. Not worth the expense for such occasional use, plus public transport is often quicker and easier for the places we like to go to. So no, driving isn't essential at all for me.

SoonToBe they could use public transport for holidays in the UK and day trips further afield? Or not go on them! As far as I'm aware trains run to places like Cornwall/Blackpool etc, and even to the countryside!

LadyIsabella that's exactly what I thought about the small boy I mentioned upthread. He's growing up being driven to school on the same street where he lives, which is just about the most ridiculously self-indulgent and unhealthy thing I can think of at the mo.

I wonder whether this is a journalist? The OP sounds a bit suspect to me really.

My most obvious rejoinder might be that even if you can drive - one parent might be taking the car to work so the other still has to get the bus.

The less cars on the road the better imho. I think it is shocking there isn't better public transport especially in rural areas. In the end it is only the poor and elderly who end up using buses so no-one cares whether they run or not or campaigns to improve the service. It should be a compulsory part of the infrastructure that there ARE better services for non-car users and cheaper services.

To me what is shocking is that it is cheaper to drive to my local high street and park than to take a bus. Surely the bus is what the council should be encouraging me to take? And the train. Fares should be subsidised a lot more not just for the young.

^^^^
Couldn't agree more.

I can drive, but only learnt to do so quite recently (I am in my 40s). I live in a big city and have not really had any need to do so. The only reason I learnt is that DD and I would like to go camping this summer and I want a car to transport all the stuff as public transport is not easy in the countryside. Plus shopping is a lot easier with a car, although I did manage OK with my shopping trolley before. We have a modest 9 year old Ford Ka which has really low fuel consumption and meets all our needs.

DD and I walk to school and back. We walk to the shops and back unless we need to buy heavy things. We walk to the park and back. And we get public transport anywhere we can't walk to unless there isn't any. It's good for us and we enjoy sitting on the bus and looking out of the window or talking to cats on the way to school. It's also good for us to walk. Even walking to the bus stop and back is more walking than you do if you use a car all the time.

DD is 8. She's been able to read a bus timetable or a tube map since she was 5 or so. She likes doing it. It's good for her and promotes independence.

The car is strictly for heavy shopping and holiday/weekend trips to places with no public transport.

But how do people go on holiday in the Uk or day trips to anywhere not local?

train or hire a car.