Not exactly - I was equating “never had a license” with “can’t drive”. Because in my experience, there’s usually only a short time (weeks not years) where an adult who knows how to and is physically able to drive has never had a license. There are of course loads of people who know how to drive but no longer have licenses for one reason or another.
Well, it’s not like I’m green.
My apologies for helping with the hijacking of this ship. I’m leaving, but will replace all davits.
Round here it’s fairly standard for there to be a year or so between the learning and licensing steps
I caught the bus at 6.30 a.m. for a 7.55 school day, so that was about 2½ hours a day, five days a week. I don’t recall anyone, least of all my parents, trying to rescue me from that time. I don’t know if that had anything to do with making sure I had my license the second I turned 16, but I bet it did.
Until recently I had a neighbor who never had a license because of a ‘hidden’ disability – she’d had a seizure disorder from childhood. It was ‘well controlled’ by drugs, but that meant she only had seizures four or five times a year, with no more than a couple minutes of warning, and often the warning signs were mild enough that she’d miss them if she was busy doing something that engaged her, and only realize that they’d come AFTER having recovered from the seizure.
I know that might sound weird, but I understand because I get ocular migraines. Often I am well into one of them before I consciously realize it. I eventually start wondering why I’m reading so slowly, and only then ‘notice’ the weird flashing and sparkling lights taking over my vision. My brain somehow ‘edits out’ the light show at the start, some sort of auto-correction thingy that is apparently a normal thing brains learn to do to ignore minor flaws in the info your brain gets from your retina.
Anyway, knowing you can go basically unconscious at any time with only a minute or two between the first signs and totally losing control of your mind/body… well, not a good thing if the person is at the wheel of a car at high speed or in heavy traffic or anything. She cannot legally ever get a driver’s license.
But she wasn’t shy about letting people know about it. It wasn’t the first thing out of her mouth upon meeting a new person, but she always explained about it when a guy would ask her for a second date or she’d be getting into a continuing interaction with someone for whatever reason.
She told me she sort of blessed the Covid epidemic, because the local grocery instituted a pretty cheap home delivery system, eliminating about 70% of the times she had to ask someone for a ride.
One thing about this thread that puzzles me:
Everyone’s focusing on why an adult can’t/won’t get a driver’s license, while no one seems concerned about the screaming red flags when it comes to the character of someone who’s (apparently) lying to her SO and insisting that even acquaintances help her perpetuate that lie.
A cousin the same way. He met his wife when he was in the hospital. She was his nurse. They fell in love and are married. 30 years now.
He can’t drive because of seizures.
So actually if you read my post, I was pointing out the fact (as a 15+ year resident of san francisco) that while San Francisco proper does have reasonable public transportation, it’s actually a small city (7x7 miles famously) and the moment you are outside the city there is basically bugger all reliable public transport. So most people I knew who were car free relied on services like Zip Car (or friends/partners with cars) fairly frequently.
It’s not the kind of city where the subject of driving would never come up, sooner or later (probably sooner) you’ll need to get out to somewhere in the North, South or East Bay, and there isn’t any reasonable way to get there without driving.
But if you need to get to the West Bay, you’re screwed even if you have a car.
YES!!! This is it, exactly!
Because we’ve all been trained by a lifetime of sitcoms, which use ridiculously poor communication as plot drivers. Somebody maintaining an pointless elaborate ruse with a significant other is a plot we’ve all seen before, though maybe not in real life. It’s poor writing, though (unless the character has a reason to be a poor communicator).
No one, except for the numerous posts up thread where exactly this point is made
Though it’s not the interesting bit IMO. That someone I’ve never met is lying to their partner and trying to get their friends (and their families) to back up the lie is not particularly remarkable or interesting. The fact someone in America does not drive and has managed to keep their car-owning boyfriend, who she has lived with for four years, oblivious to that fact (or thinks she has) is. I mean how is that possible in somewhere as car-dependent as America?
Depends on the type of car 
Well if you have street parking then absolutely no way you aren’t finding out, hell good luck keeping that from a casual hook up, let alone a live-in partner.
But if you have a garage, in a properly pedestrian European-style city where driving is not a convenient way to get around, I can see it being possible. If you only ever use the car for occasional trips out of town where the boyfriend drives (nothing too long where you might want to switch drivers), it might not come up.
They are at the theater today. I told the Lil’wrekker to ask pointed questions.
Why do you not drive?
Do have an impairment that prevents you from getting a lisc?
Do you think y’all will break up if he finds out?
Don’t you think he really does know?
She said she would try.
I don’t know that I agree or at least not to that extent. There are multiple connecting bus lines + BART + a little bit of non-BART railway + ferries. It’s functional, it’s just not efficient. My mother used to commute by bus a hour and half each way to a job in the East Bay that was ten miles away as the crow flies from her home (maybe a twenty minute drive in neutral traffic). Not exactly fun, but perfectly doable and many people have to or choose to.
I would not say that. There is less public transport but in my experience what there is is generally reliable. For example, I live in the East Bay. I use BART a lot, it works ok most of the time. I also take local buses once in a while, they are pretty good at following a schedule. The thing is, the schedule is for only one bus an hour, say.
I consider driving a necessary life skill. I have made getting a drivers license by my children, non-negotiable. I still have one daughter under-age, but when she reaches 15, she will get her permit and we’ll go from there. Both of my driving kids are very good drivers, have good driving records and are confident in driving in all conditions. Goal accomplished so far.
Even if you never intend to drive, knowing how to drive and how roads work is important. It can make you a better and safer pedestrian, cyclist, etc. My nephew and niece that are living with us are not interested in driving and while we have urged them to learn to drive, ultimately, it will be their decision (well, nephew is still a half year short from permit age but I doubt he will pursue it). If they were our own children, I think it would also be mandatory.
Absolutely. If I was a parent this would be non-negotiable.