What do you think of adults who never learned to drive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted previously that I think it’s entitled. I do have a lot of family in NYC and the surrounding boroughs, and it’s pretty common in the older generations of my Italian/puerto Rican family that women simply didn’t learn to drive (actively discouraged/not allowed by spouses). In that case I am sympathetic.

Wow this describes the older generations of my family where men learned to drive VERY early (I think my dad learned when he was 14?) but women were not taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:...and are now in their 40s.

Not because of any trauma or anything, just didn't get around to it.

Have to rely on everyone else to get rides or Uber everywhere.

Obviously there are as many reasons why as there are people who don't drive, and as many different personalities. Why would someone think one thing about a diverse group of individuals like that? The ability to not see human beings as normal people is reaching new lows. Congrats, OP.

[Anonymous]

All the people I know who never learned to drive take public transportation. I think highly of them. We are quite literally killing the planet with our cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...and are now in their 40s.

Not because of any trauma or anything, just didn't get around to it.

Have to rely on everyone else to get rides or Uber everywhere.

Obviously there are as many reasons why as there are people who don't drive, and as many different personalities. Why would someone think one thing about a diverse group of individuals like that? The ability to not see human beings as normal people is reaching new lows. Congrats, OP.

Where did the OP generalize about a group of people?

[Anonymous]

That they live in NYC and travel mostly to Europe.

[Anonymous]

I'm the driver, DW never learned how for various reasons. Early in our marriage I tried to teach her at least enough to feel comfortable taking Adult Driver's Ed - it did not go well.

It's a little frustrating sometimes not having a driving partner on road trips, and also never having a designated driver, but mostly it's NBD since we do pretty much everything together anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they grew up in a city. Then I think nothing more of it.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they have lived in a big urban center or city all their lives (like NYC) then I think nothing of it.

If they live in a place like Northern VA or the burbs, I think they must be incredibly emotionally stunted. [url]Driving isn't just about getting from Point A to Point B - it's about independence and freedom[b]. I get that learning to drive is nerve racking for a lot of people, but emotionally stable people have a stronger sense of independence to want to overcome that nervousness.

It’s funny you say this because I feel entirely the opposite. I do have a license and drive, but it’s entirely a function of needing to get from point A to B. Car ownership is the opposite of freedom to me. It’s so much stupid maintenance and stress. My car is due for an inspection, but I just don’t really want to spend any of my free time dealing with that. I hate the annual property tax. I hate unexpected car repairs. I hate paying for insurance. I hate pumping gas. I hate the actual act of driving and dealing with traffic and idiots on the road like drunk drivers. The idea of the car as freedom is brainwashing by the auto industry when really it is capitalism making us entirely reliant on foreign oil drilling to just leave our homes.

I’m not saying personal vehicles shouldn’t have ever had a place in our transit system, but I think it’s a huge shame we abandoned centuries of city/town planning to create a society entirely around the presumption we’d all forever continue to use something that was invented a little over 100 years ago.

You are equating "knowing how to drive" with "owning a car." You can know how to drive so that you can rent a car if you need (or use one of those car-sharing services, if they still exist). You can know how to drive so you can rent the uhaul to move your big piece of furniture.

But you can also have freedom with the ability to order an Uber or pick up the phone to call movers to lug your furniture.

Uber doesn’t exist everywhere. I’ve been to plenty of vacation spots without Ubers. If I relied on them I would have been very restricted in my ability to travel.

I guess it depends on where you want to travel. I’ve never owned a car and didn’t learn to drive until I was 24. I now have a 4yo who gets violently carsick so there were only a few years where renting a car was even a viable option for travel for me and I pretty much never used it — much of the world has good options for public transit and/or walking. I’m not sorry I learned to drive but I’ve had way more people try to press me into riding with them than I have ever asked for rides (I much prefer public transit or Uber to sharing a car with an acquaintance).

And I am sympathetic to adults who don’t learn to drive. It was very hard, stressful, and expensive to learn to drive as an adult. You either have to mooch on someone to trust you with their car while you learn a terrifying new skill and they look on and criticize, or you have to pay $50+ an hour to have a professional do the same. I’m going to force my kids to get their licenses as teens just so they don’t have to experience that.

[Anonymous]

Nothing.

[Anonymous]

My friend's DH is like this and it frankly makes me think less of him. He grew up in NYC, fine, but is now married in suburbia with a kid. He refuses to learn and is happy for his wife to bear the burden of shuttling the kid places, running errands, taking him to his own doctor's appointments, etc. Occasionally he'll take an Uber. He does have a well-paying job that takes care of most of the family income but is also feckless in the kitchen, with cleaning, and with parenting and his willingness to abdicate all of this stuff onto his wife and not bother to learn to drive so she doesn't have to act as his chauffeur in addition to everything is is kind of pathetic. I can't understand being content with that kind of arrangement but they do their way. Yes, learning to drive is scary. Too bad.

[Anonymous]

I'm 46 and have always lived in Brooklyn NY and do not drive. When I was younger I took mass transit or my husband would drive if he was home. Now I just take Uber if my husband can't take me.

I never learned because it wasn't a priority because I had all the conveniences within a few blocks of me including a beach. Even now I live off a major avenue with all the shopping and restaurants I need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is wild to me. All of you associating the ability to operate a single type of machine with maturity. Do you have a similar level of judgement on people who don’t go to college? Don’t own houses in their own names? Hire other people to do their taxes? Don’t have a passport?

The people who get their self esteem by putting down others is growing every minute. It's been true forever that insecure people abound and they live to jump on the littlest weakness of another person. You know they're actually the ones with low iqs.

It’s characteristic of the DMV. A bunch of book smart dorks attempting to exact revenge upon the world because they were so unpopular in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they have lived in a big urban center or city all their lives (like NYC) then I think nothing of it.

If they live in a place like Northern VA or the burbs, I think they must be incredibly emotionally stunted. [url]Driving isn't just about getting from Point A to Point B - it's about independence and freedom. I get that learning to drive is nerve racking for a lot of people, but emotionally stable people have a stronger sense of independence to want to overcome that nervousness.

It’s funny you say this because I feel entirely the opposite. I do have a license and drive, but it’s entirely a function of needing to get from point A to B. Car ownership is the opposite of freedom to me. It’s so much stupid maintenance and stress. My car is due for an inspection, but I just don’t really want to spend any of my free time dealing with that. I hate the annual property tax. I hate unexpected car repairs. I hate paying for insurance. I hate pumping gas. I hate the actual act of driving and dealing with traffic and idiots on the road like drunk drivers. [b]The idea of the car as freedom is brainwashing by the auto industry when really it is capitalism making us entirely reliant on foreign oil drilling to just leave our homes.

I’m not saying personal vehicles shouldn’t have ever had a place in our transit system, but I think it’s a huge shame we abandoned centuries of city/town planning to create a society entirely around the presumption we’d all forever continue to use something that was invented a little over 100 years ago.

Nailed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in a couple with a car, the non-driver (outside of disability) actually is weaponizing incompetence. Imagine some dude saying "oh I can't cook dinner I might burn the house down" and the wife saying "ah he's got cooking anxiety so it's ok if I have to do all the cooking."

I don't think that's equivalent because there are ways to prepare food that are less likely to burn the house down (use a microwave! Have a fire extinguisher handy! Make a cold sandwich!) but it's not as easy to mitigate risk when driving. If you hit someone, they really could die.

If you set fire to the house, someone really could die.

There's more time and more opportunities to fix a small problem before it becomes deadly with cooking than with driving.

[Anonymous]

If they live in the city, no big deal. Suburb or country and I assume they struggle with anxiety. Also, they need to use Uber and not mooch.