If you choose not to drive you are a pain in the arse

[Ophir]

Always lifts, always expecting basically chauffeured

I don't know why people can't construct sentences properly either, it makes them look dim.

Is the problem that some people don't drive, or that so many people (including town planers) work on the assumption that everyone should drive and have access to a car?

Yes, it's a pain in the arse not to be able to drive, but it needn't be if there were fewer out of town shopping centres, NHS 'hubs' instead of local treatment centres, cinemas etc on high streets instead of on retail parks and so on. Town centres are jammed with cars (with attendant poor air quality) as people insist on bringing them into town for every visit, but houses are now being built on every blade of grass on the far outskirts, so there's not much choice for the elderly, infirm or those with young children, never mind the ones who drive 200 yards to go to the gym. We need to rethink the way things are set up, so there is a genuine choice about whether to drive or not. More public transport and fewer out of town centres would be a start. High streets are losing facilities, and even city centres (which tend to have decent transport links) are in decline, and more and more houses are build out of town on estates with no shops, surgeries or other infrastructure.

IMO there is a huge difference between accepting a lift to somewhere the driver is attending anyway, and asking someone to make a separate journey to take you somewhere. I can't imagine not offering a lift to someone who is going where I'm going (particularly if s/he couldn't get there easily otherwise) but would expect them to be ready at the arranged time and to leave when I am ready to go home, just as I would if getting a lift from someone else.

I’ve apologised for my rage fuelled poor English

As in, use public transport on your wedding day?

sorry @Ophir I meant the people that do it on purpose!

Do those requiring lifts at least offer some money for going out of your way?

I used to have a 7 seater. I always preferred it to be full. I have NEVER been able to understand why people hate giving lifts.

Not everyone wants to drive.

I cannot drive for health reasons and YOU and your kind are the exact reason why I’d rather walk 100 miles barefoot over hot coals than ever ask anyone for a lift.

Take a long hard look at yourself then come back.

Well yes if you expect lifts but are medically fine to drive and could afford to learn and buy a car then it’s annoying, just say no. However not everyone can drive medically speaking and others can’t afford to.

Because it's unlikely people will live in the exact same area or want to leave at the exact same time as you do.

Maybe you need to find different friends, they all sound very entitled.

I really don't mind giving lifts to people - I'm usually glad to. I love driving, and having spent years without a car I know what it can mean to be spared a long faff of a train journey or a long walk in bad weather. I'd find it completely odious if someone felt I owed them a lift but I find that non-drivers are usually really appreciative. Can't really be doing with anti-car moralising - an Uber still generates emissions! If you don't like giving lifts, put your foot down - people who convince themselves that they're "people pleasing" (failing to assert their own wishes and bottling up resentment) aren't helping themselves or anyone else.

And on the flipside, (greedy) new build housing developers who build family homes on a remote (flood plain) plot and only make the driveway big enough for one car, as if it's incomprehensible that the two adults in said households might both need to run cars and head in opposite directions to fulfi work/family obligations.

Yabu. You know one or more CFs @Ophir but not all non-drivers are CFs.

I know some people who are non drivers for ethical reasons and are as militantly anti personal motorised-vehicles as some vegans are anti-meat and only go anywhere if they can get there by foot, bike or public transport. They very very rarely accept a lift - if an event is completely inaccessible otherwise and someone they love would be really disappointed if they didn't come they do, but they make a big deal of offsetting the carbon for the event as penance.

Others I know are dyspraxic and have failed driving tests too many times to keep trying.

Choosing to live without reliance on a personal vehicle is good. I can't manage it because of my particular circumstances so I have a car, but I admire those who do.

Your gripe is not with non-drivers but with CFs with a sense of entitlement who think the world owes them a chauffeur service. The two groups are different.

We’re empty nesters with 2 cars but I hardly use mine, since we have excellent public transport (outer London) but I wouldn’t be without it when it comes to visiting dd 60 miles away (3 motorways) - takes a lot longer by public transport. It would have been a lot harder to help with childcare without a car.

Dh uses mine (small) rather more than I do. His car (bigger, older, attracts ULEZ charge) is reserved for long journeys, e.g. the 5-6 hours to visit family in N UK, 7 hours to a BiL’s place in France.

I know people who don't drive because they are in a city and don't need to, or they don't have the money to lay out for a car, or they simply don't want to have that amount of negative impact on the environment.

All are perfectly reasonable. I especially respect the environmental choice - I really don't want to give up the convenience of having a car, but I think it's great that people do, especially given the state of public transport and trains these days.

I would say if you choose TO drive then you should expect to occasionally offer lifts to friends and family if you can, and not be an arse about it? (I drive and am very happy to do this - especially for friends who are making environmental sacrifices).

My personal experience is that those unable to drive have much better manners and etiquette around lifts than those who can drive but choose not to.

I remember giving a lift to a friend working on his music masters, and piling him, two other people, and a shed load of recording equipment into my car so that we could drive to an abandoned power station for him to record his avante garde free form music (random noises).

Now, I had offered to do this to help him out, but what I did resent was the tone deaf ranting by one of the other volunteers that cars were the bane of society, all drivers were bottom feeding scum, etc, ad nauseum. The twat did shut up when I asked him ho they were all getting back home afterwards, as I wasn't driving them back if they hated all cars and drivers! My masters friend had to intervene and did do a goid job of persuading me not to abandon them all, but I only agreed on the proviso that all of them (non drivers) never ask me for a favour of any sort ever again.

I now drive an electric vehicle, so get hate from other drivers too 😆

I guess if you want to spend time with those people you make an effort? If you aren't bothered who you mix with, or are happy just to see who turns up to things, then fine; but if you are friends with a group of people, some of whom can get to places and others can't, you (all) either arrange meetings which are accessible to all (either by offering lifts where necessary or by choosing accessible venues) or you restrict your friendship groups to exclude non-drivers and those who are more accommodating than you are. Just as you (or most people) wouldn't organise group activities that always exclude disabled members. Obviously there will be some times when non-drivers have to duck out; but on the whole it makes sense to fill cars with (paying) passengers, and to ensure that as many people as possible are able to attend as many things as possible. If everyone in a group lives in a different town and you are meeting somewhere else then the non-driver needs to make their own arrangements, but if you live in the next street where's the hardship in giving a lift?

As has been said, there are CFs in all walks of life, and it's perfectly reasonable to stop enabling them in that. But if a non-driver pulls her weight otherwise, why on earth would you exclude them?

Completely not the case. The only time I get an occasional lift is when my brother picks me up to go to football on the way down from my mums when he visits her and a lift home after we go out for a meal - maybe five times a year. The rest of the time I use buses.

Perfectly put last paragraph.

Me too, I have a car but grab lifts when I can.
I was wondering if this post was made by one of my long suffering daughters 🫣

i completely agree with you OP, as someone with both a mother and sister in this category who whatever a stronger word than expect is for lifts.

Is the problem that some people don't drive, or that so many people (including town planers) work on the assumption that everyone should drive and have access to a car?

That has to be balanced against a general environmental push to ensure private transport is never preferable to public (so expensive car parking and traffic light heavy routes where the "bypass" is slower than the direct route). And add to that the financial incentive for housebuilders to use as little land for as much profit - hence the amusingly named "garages" that a US friend genuinely thought was an unheated shed on a visit.

I do. But I certainly dont beg for lifts and 99% of the time it's not just me going anyway.
I'm actually quite self sufficient. My parents didn't drive so had to get around without a car.

Bit harsh, as they say, but if my husband didn't drive by choice then I can absolutely see how you'd get to feel that way. I'd be infuriated.