M. 34
I’m currently studying for the theory and then the practice for the license and I hate it… But since I’m unemployed for like half a year now maybe it will give me more chances to get hired. Still I will avoid driving as much as possible, being on a highway scares me and I’m afraid of having an accident. Plus I wear glasses and I’m not sure if my reflexes or peripheral view are good enough…
So, what’s your reason to not drive a car… money? For the environment? Are you afraid? You really don’t need to?
Simple: I fucking hate driving. I hate the smell, I hate the noise, and I hate the stress. Thr environmental impact isnt exactly a plus point either. You could say that I’m lucky to live in a place with good public transport, but I actively sought out a place with public transport because I didn’t want to rely on a car.
Final nail on the coffin: I developed Menieres disease, so I am prone to intense vertigo attacks at short notice - I couldn’t get a license even if I wanted one.
We have good public transport and I believe reading something on the way to be a better use of that time.
But you can read while behind the wheel of a Tesla 🙃
hits and kills kid crossing the road because Tesla is a lying piece of shit and their “self driving” doesn’t actually work
Oops.
At least you got a few pages in, right?
You don’t need an overpriced piece of junk for that. That’s why american cars are plastered with useless safety instructions
Cars are expensive to buy and maintain. Also I don’t think finding a parking spot and then parking is a fun activity. Also the metro can in many cases be faster, and I can use my phone while I’m in it.
Trust me, you could absolutely follow the example of other drivers and use your phone while driving.
I’m personally baffled at how many are killed in automobile accidents. 44,000 Americans every year. American KIA numbers for the entirety of the global war on terror is around 5,000. That is roughly only one month’s worth of automobile deaths.
Americans dead in Vietnam is around 58,000 over ten years. That’s only a year and a half worth of automobile deaths.
Even in WW2, over 4 years, 416,000 americans lost their lives, around 104,000 per year. Even during the deadliest war in history, automobiles today still kill 44% as many year to year. Granted the war did not touch America as much relatively but are still mind boggling statistics.
It feels as though learning to drive is merely fueling the cycle. More cars cause politicians to invest further in road infrastructure instead. More people giving up on public transportation further starves it of the funding it deserves and desperately needs.
It feels as though learning to drive
Yous should probably start there
Fuck me, the worst, most selfish and badly trained drivers I’ve ever seen in my life
How the fuck could anyone be ten times worse than the Italians?!?!
I have a license, but never use it. I’m Dutch. My work and the train station are less than 10 min by bike, the supermarket is a 5 min walk. I can do almost anything by bike and sometimes public transport and it saves me hundreds of euro’s a month.
I have a license. I enjoy driving as a leisure activity.
But I hate driving to work. I just take the shuttle and enjoy listening to my podcasts. We have a decent public transport system as well, so it helps.
According to medical checkups, I am fine, but I know for a fact I am not a safe driver. I have bad attention span, sight, reaction, field of view, and tiredness issues. I am ideologically repelled by cars. And it looks feels dull to me to drive and also to study for an exam.
For me, it’s the opposite. I’m autistic, without ID (aka intellectual disability), but apparently, I have practically the same amount of rights as people with ID. I was forced to go to the psychological exam, where nothing was wrong, but I got accused of being irresponsible and have to wait another year. Great.
I feel you mate.
Also get easily tired in a car. Already got in an accident with another car at slow speeds. Luckily it was a company owned car :p
Basically, confidence. I don’t have enough confidence to drive a car. Heck even riding a bike gives me anxiety that I’m going to collide with somebody or get hit by someone.
Just wait until you try canoe.
I have, didn’t get far. lol
i think a unicycle is more your style
I had no access to or use of a car until I was around 23. Up to that point I lived in a country where you could cycle for most of your daily routine, take the bus a couple of times a month and the train sporadically.
I moved to a country where cycling was for the poor and foolhardy, me for several years, and public transport was atrocious.
Public transport has marginally improved, my bicycle hasn’t been used for 20+ years and our household has one car.
Learning to drive is a process. It takes time. Just like learning to fly a plane takes time. If you have a need to drive, learning how is step one. In my country even when you pass your test, you are required to keep a logbook for at least two years and drive in a variety of conditions before you can actually upgrade your probationary licence.
Wow which country did you go from and to where?
It seems like a downgrade, but there must have been an economical / life quality reason that you had moved.
I was born in Australia, moved to the Netherlands as a child and as an an adult moved back to Australia where I am now.
I don’t want to get a license only to forget everything because I won’t drive.
I see having a car as a necessity only. For me, it’s only acceptable if public transport/bicycle is not an option. Unfortunately, the latter is almost never an option due to how everything is built car-centric, but the former very often is.
Also, I don’t know anything about cars, I don’t have to think where to park that huge piece of shit, I don’t need to be my own driver, I don’t need to do any maintenance, it’s more ecological and even cheaper than just gas.
I got my license at 18 before I moved out, but my parents made the entire ordeal a nightmare. It was more anxiety than it was worth to get my required miles in with them as the instructor. People living in large cities often never get the opportunity, it’s high stress and taxis are readily available. Car ownership is expensive and public transportation is available, as well as biking. In uni I taught several Asian students how to drive because countries like Japan often have expensive training programs, and insurance is painful for testers. European cities are often designed for micro mobility and bikes and smart cars are preferred just because of size.
Aren’t taxis incredibly expensive where you live? They are here.
They typically are quite expensive, but if you don’t use them daily, only use them when absolutely needed (which is when other options are not available), it will be cheaper than maintaining a car.
I don’t think people are “refusing”, it’s not like it’s mandatory or anything. Nobody’s trying to force you to drive a car.
I know I’ll never be able to afford a car, they’re incredibly expensive to buy and operate, and most of my travel is already covered by our excellent Trams, Buses and Trains, which can get me basically anywhere comfortably and quickly.
For the times I need something special I can ask someone for a lift, but that happens only a handful of times a year. A car would be a big, expensive, risky piece of equipment to just leave sat around for someone to steal…
I don’t think people are “refusing”
I know a few people who have no reason NOT to learn to drive, but just don’t and instead mooch off everyone else.
My folks had a falling out with a couple they’d been friends with for ages because they refused to get their licence… But then expected them to come and pick them up from the train station when they were invited to dinner, spent most of the night telling everyone how smart they are for not having a car, and then expecting a lift back to the train station. Having just spent a couple of hours banging on about how much financially better off they were, I saw it as essentially stealing to then demand someone else use their asset and running costs to carry them around for free.
My sister in law finally got her licence at 30-something after a couple of decades constantly harassing family members for a ride.
Some people certainly are refusing. I know someone who is almost 23 and refuses to get a license. His parents got a car for him and his brother (who never leaves the house) so he could drive just chooses not to. He even had his mom drive him to his job every day over the summer.
Instead of car, people of my country usually able to drive motorcycle.
But not me. I’d rather take my bicycle. I don’t want to deal with cost of maintaining motorcycle.
I drive but I hate it and try to do it as little as possible. I have never liked them. The exhaust and danger. Walking and riding a bike is enjoyable. Public transit allows you to do enjoyable things (suduko, play a video or video game). Its not till the last few decades that the environment came into thought around it for me and I realized how incredibly bad the direction of society went around it. I had biked and walked through high school but was traveling by car a lot after that but mostly as a passenger until I started working. Then in the 2000’s I started biking and I had no idea why I had not been doing it before. Then I realized the infrastructure to make it safer and easier to do had not really been there before then for my city and its gotten way better since. Its like biking in the winter. I do more transit then and I thought I was the weather but I eventually realized I actually more just don’t like biking in the dark which got me to do it more in terms of weekend day activities. That being said everyone should learn if they have the opportunity because there are still to many jobs where you might need it and its not hard to get. Should pick up a cdl if someone like work will cover the cost. Driving actually would not bother me as much if for a job as presumably there would be benefit (both my pay and whatever is getting accomplished for society) but just to get myself around when there are so many better options. Yuck.
Don’t need to and its cheaper
