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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

I'm pp who only got a license after having kids and this is so true.

I don't enjoy driving, but at the end of the day I can drive my own kids and self places and am not reliant on others. It was totally worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

It feels like the women who never learned to pay bills, get a bank account, or manage whatever money they have. I guess it's a generational thing at this point (I hope?). Is it still common for women to just not learn to drive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that they must have a reason and that their life is already difficult enough without my judgment on top of it.

How much do you go out of your way to help these people with difficult lives? Like would you drive them everywhere, all the time?

How many of "those people" do you help out? Ever?

I doubt you do because if you did you wouldn't be on here bi&&&ng about it. IF not, it's none of your business how they get around.

I frequently drive my mooching friends around.

Notice you didn't answer the question.

I'm not the one judging them or belittling them, moron. I am an immigrant who has a parent that never learned how to drive so I extend this kid of help all the time. now you? How often do you drive people who can't drive?

to state again: "I frequently drive my mooching friends around."

But you seem to be coating the initial question with a lot of assumptions about what I'm asking. Why so escalated about asking about your limits?

So stop "helping" your mooching friends if you're going to be an ass about it. Simple.

If you can't help with an open heart, don't help at all.

This is probably the only way she is able to keep friends. She is so insufferable that if they didn’t need her for driving they’d most likely have nothing to do with her.

Methinks you might be a mooching friend.

No one can mooch off of you unless you let them so I guess you're the dumb one.

You aren’t really speaking very highly of people who can’t figure out how to drive.

I can see why your friends would only use you for rides.

You are correct that they are shallow and immature and are not good friends. I am dumb for thinking they are good people.

Glad we agree.

This is obviously touching a nerve for you and I wonder why. Are you also on the kissing thread complaining that no one should car what other people do?

It's touching about as much nerve for me as it is for you. Again, if giving rides to others bothers you so much, just don't do it. Problem solved.

I am purely enjoying aggravating you, at this point.

Bahahaha....yet here you are in histrionics when someone can't/won't do something arbitrary YOU think they should do. How dare they be different!!!!!

This started as someone asking what the limits are related to a person choosing not to learn to drive and it drove you insane.

Also, there appears to be more than one person driving you insane here.

Why is it driving you insane?

You'd love that, right. I'm not sitting here pondering what others choose to do with their lives whatever the hell they choose. It's none of my business. Why is it driving you insane that others choose to live differently than you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I'd compare it more to cooking or figuring out your bills.

People may say they have anxiety about doing those things, but I do think that if they can't get over that to have basic adult skills, then they are immature.

That’s a terrible comparison. No one dies if your cooking sucks or if you can’t figure out your bills. So the anxiety connected to driving is significantly higher!

What happens when you try to drive? Do you have a panic attack? Serious question. Like is it physically impossible in the sense that you can't breath or something?

I can imagine people who have been in serious accidents may feel that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

It feels like the women who never learned to pay bills, get a bank account, or manage whatever money they have. I guess it's a generational thing at this point (I hope?). Is it still common for women to just not learn to drive?

No it's not.

[Anonymous]

I think how close that could have been me.

I had anxiety along w/an irrational fear of being behind the wheel of a car that I did not get my license until I was 32.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

Out of all of my childhood friends, I was the one who couldn’t drive. All of them stayed in the area where we grew up, and their interests focus around their children and grandchildren. In contrast, I went away to college, attended top tier universities, and finally learned to drive well enough to function in a smaller city that lacked reliable public transportation.

PP, perhaps the critical variable is less knowing how to drive — and more being curious enough about the world to figure out how to navigate it successfully, one way or another.

I think people in the very car-centric areas of the US don’t realize that driving is a relatively recent skill that only became common after the ‘60s or so, which destroyed the very awesome mass transit systems in many US cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I'd compare it more to cooking or figuring out your bills.

People may say they have anxiety about doing those things, but I do think that if they can't get over that to have basic adult skills, then they are immature.

That’s a terrible comparison. No one dies if your cooking sucks or if you can’t figure out your bills. So the anxiety connected to driving is significantly higher!

What happens when you try to drive? Do you have a panic attack? Serious question. Like is it physically impossible in the sense that you can't breath or something?

I can imagine people who have been in serious accidents may feel that way.

DP: I have the sense that for most people, driving skills at some point become automatic. For me, that’s never happened. Oddly, I can parallel park pretty well. But I’ve never been able to envision myself in relation to moving traffic — merging terrifies me. And drivers in the DC area are impatient. I did have some trauma related to my early driving experiences, but I think my real block is that nothing is automatic, and it’s not safe to be an over-cautious/ less predictable driver in this area. If I could drive without traffic, I’d be fine. As it is, my lack of skills make me a safety risk.

[Anonymous]

I know a middle aged woman who does not drive but is a diehard feminist. I think it’s contradictory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

It feels like the women who never learned to pay bills, get a bank account, or manage whatever money they have. I guess it's a generational thing at this point (I hope?). Is it still common for women to just not learn to drive?

It depends. You’re asking a group that leans towards UMC — so they likely had access to available cars and ongoing instruction and opportunities to practice; who, despite the name of the site, tend to live very suburban lives.
As a former New Yorker, there are lots of us who never learned to drive — because we had other available options.

What’s interesting is that thanks to public transportation, I had a huge amount of freedom from the time I was about 12. I used public transportation for school — and pretty much everywhere else that I wanted to go. That’s possibly a few years earlier than the kids who lived in less urban areas who relied upon their parents for transportation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

It feels like the women who never learned to pay bills, get a bank account, or manage whatever money they have. I guess it's a generational thing at this point (I hope?). Is it still common for women to just not learn to drive?

It depends. You’re asking a group that leans towards UMC — so they likely had access to available cars and ongoing instruction and opportunities to practice; who, despite the name of the site, tend to live very suburban lives.
As a former New Yorker, there are lots of us who never learned to drive — because we had other available options.

What’s interesting is that thanks to public transportation, I had a huge amount of freedom from the time I was about 12. I used public transportation for school — and pretty much everywhere else that I wanted to go. That’s possibly a few years earlier than the kids who lived in less urban areas who relied upon their parents for transportation.

But that doesn't seem gendered, right? NYers (and other people raised in areas with excellent public transpo) of all genders would seem equally likely to not get licenses/learn to drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom grew up in NYC with six sisters. They all moved out to the suburbs and she and 3 other sisters learned to drive in their 20s.

The three sisters who didn't learn how to drive also did not take much agency over their lives - they were homemakers or secretaries and their husbands picked them up and dropped them off, they did not have a lot of outside hobbies or activities.

Those 3 sisters (out of 7 girls) are the only ones to suffer from dementia in their 70s. One passed away, and the remaining 2 are quite advanced. The other sisters are all pretty healthy cognitively in their 80s.

I'm not trying to say not driving = cognitive decline, but certainly, I see a correlation in my own family between low personal agency and declining cognitive health.

As an interesting side topic, the implication of your post seems to be confusing correlation with causation. I wonder if perhaps whatever led to the cognitive decline of the three non-driving sisters was also a factor in their decision not to learn to drive in the first place. This seems more likely than the idea that not learning a skill that has only existed for approximately 100 years can somehow impact one’s cognitive health in old age…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a middle aged woman who does not drive but is a diehard feminist. I think it’s contradictory.

Is it contradictory that I vote for every woman to be able to have access to safe and legal abortion but don't want to get an abortion myself?

I don't think so.

[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.

I assume they have always lived in a very walkable area and I envy them that they had that experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

+ 1. If I lived in NYC I wouldn't learn to drive.

There are a lot of people in NYC who wanted to learn but couldn't/can't--it's very expensive plus on top of that very few people own cars so there's no access to a vehicle to practice with. And oftentimes people with a license let it expire there.