I’m 36 and have lived in a mix of rural and urban areas of America and I never learned to drive and have never driven a car.
Just want to make the point that not driving is really an option, just one that most people look for a way to avoid. It’s all a matter of priorities and as much as most people say they hate driving/traffic, very few actually do anything about it.
I think it's hard as an adult. I never learned as a child (grew up on a very narrow and winding country road) and I did kinda/sorta teach myself as an adult but I never gained the confidence to ride on roads with traffic.
>even above driving
And I have trouble agreeing for most people. Many need cars on a day-to-day basis and even if owning a car doesn't make sense for some people even in the US, being able to rent one and go someplace on the weekend or for a trip opens up a lot of possibilities for many. I wouldn't even have been able to do my first job if I couldn't drive.
Agreed. Many people underestimate the aversion of a large swath of the population to driving. Driving basically monopolizes your time and focus and exposes you to accidents. I don’t know if I know anyone who would rather drive if they could get to their destination in the same relative time, unless they’d need a car on the other end.
Actually, a lot of people including dread driving cars and try to avoid it as much as possible. My wife thinks I'm lazy because I don't want to drive to so and so, but the real reason is because I know the more I drive, the higher the chances of a life-threatening accident
I grew up in a small town and was never bothered by driving around. In fact, I enjoyed it. I liked driving to and from high school.
Now that I live in a big city and the traffic is exponentially worse, I find I hate driving. This is just me, of course, but my driving experience is completely ruined in big cities most of the time. I can never quite get used to how aggressively people drive and just how bad the traffic can become. The city I'm in also has almost no public transportation.
It's not the time that bothers me. It's the manual driving and dealing with traffic. I spent a semester in Russia while in college and had about a 30 minute commute to class via the metro and I was never bothered by the time involved at all. I hardly even noticed the impact of the time spent commuting, though I admit that might have been influenced somewhat by the perpetual feeling of magic one experiences when studying abroad.
Anyway, in my case I decided to just rent an apartment in walking distance of the office and it was one of the best decisions I've made. If you're the sort of person who doesn't mind fighting traffic twice a day, I'm actually jealous of you--I could get a full house for the cost of my apartment if I moved to a suburb.
A huge percentage of elderly drivers shouldn't be on the road. We (the US) seem, as a society, to have decided to just live with that rather than trying to make it easier to live here without a car.
I moved away from a place where everyone drives all of the time for this and other reasons. I avoid traveling by car when possible. Driving or riding in an automobile is quite possibly the most risky thing that most people I know do day to day.
If you were born, raised, and now work in NYC there’s no particular reason to learn to drive, and it’s not particularly easy if you’re in a family that doesn’t drive. I’ve been driving since I was 13 (not an NYC native) but go weeks some times without driving in NYC (and the primary reason I drive now is to go to my upstate secret getaway). Doesn’t need to be a major reason, decent urban areas with decent mass transit don’t particularly require individuals to learn to drive.
I am American. I never liked driving. At some point after my divorce, I was able to give up my car. I eventually gave up my driver's license.
I don't want to make it illegal, but there are lots of people with long, miserable commutes they hate and we really need a world with more viable options.
In contrast I hate driving cars. I feel like it’s my least favorite tool. I have a nice car, I’ve driven even nicer cars in different styles and hated them all. Driving requires so much of my attention I feel like it’s invasive. In addition I feel like I have to sit relatively still and use my muscles in very particular way. It’s a trap for my mind in body, and an experience I don’t find pleasant.
I am an American and will go out of my way to use any other mode of transportation, even at the expense of time or money. Sometime’s it’s just unavoidable.
Just want to make the point that not driving is really an option, just one that most people look for a way to avoid. It’s all a matter of priorities and as much as most people say they hate driving/traffic, very few actually do anything about it.
reply