I got my learner’s permit as soon as I could, but I quickly learned I hated driving. So I put off getting my license until I was 17, nearly 18. Even then I didn’t like driving and I avoided it as much as I could.
Now that I’m almost 27, I feel nearly the same way. I will often just not go out and do something if I have to drive. Driving is a hassle, plain and simply. The idea that people equate driving with freedom and independence is very weird to me. As weird to me as my opinions are to you, probably.
I’m very happy to have a job where I literally never have to drive to work. I only drive when I absolutely have to these days, and that’s just the way I like it. I can’t wait for the day when we all have self-driven cars.
Yeah, a few people in this thread have been surprised by people with no car or car-prospects not wanting to get a licence, but seriously - thank God people DON’T do this. What kind of a driver would someone be who got a licence at 16 and then did no or practically no driving at all until they were able to get a car two, five, even ten years later? Because, realistically, someone who’s got there licence and no car is probably going to do a lot LESS driving than someone on a learner permit who may be able to cadge family and friends cars on the grounds that they “need the practise to get their licence”
I for one am very glad that people don’t generally get licenses till they think they’re realistically going to use it. New drivers are scary enough as it is.
A friend of mine used Zipcar whenever she needed to go to Costco or any more-than-usual-volume shopping trip. She had a yearly subscription and the Zipcar lot was around the corner from her apartment. She used it a lot to take weekend trips out of town too.
I wouldn’t encourage my kids to get a license just for the sake of having one. If they want a car or motorbike, I’ll help them get one. As in help them with a budget and gathering information, not as in buying it for them. It’s easier and cheaper, if I understand the rules correctly, to get a license later. It’ll keep if one or both decide to wait or not do it.
Didn’t you have a bad car accident? Seems a little weird that you strongly equate a license with freedom. I see cars as a necessary evil. Or, in a lot of cases, not necessary, so skip the evil.
Justin, no offense meant but you get hung up on details. Sven’s point is that not having a car saves her money, she can use that money for something she enjoys, therefore not having a car enhances her life. It wouldn’t work out the same way for Eric Benner.
A lifetime salary range of $39,000-$67,000 is not fortunes, for sure. I’m all for paying teachers more, given their education level and the challenges of the job.
But it’s still more than enough that, if you made it a priority, you could probably set aside $1,500-$3000 a year for your hobby. This may mean renting an apartment rather than living in a single family home. It may mean driving a used car rather than a new one. And yeah, if you are a single parent you may have a hard time making ends meet, given that being a single parent in general makes it hard for ends to meet.
But come on, broke ass students travel. Service workers travel. Government workers travel. My own mother has never made more than an average teacher salary, and she has travelled all over the world while still meeting all of her other financial responsibilities. If you prioritize it, which will probably mean cutting back on some other stuff, and get the time off, travel really is not all that hard. And yeah, of course not everyone wants to prioritize travel. But don’t tell me you “can’t” do something, when it’s that you don’t really choose to do it.
Or, to continue my point, a teacher who is able to commute and manage daily life by public transit (which is not everyone, I know) could save money to travel…or do whatever other fun activity they happen to enjoy…or just make ends meet…by not having insurance, repairs, gas, car payments, parking and other sundry car costs to pay for. I spend about $200 a month on transit, including the occasional taxi ride home. My SO spends $135 just to park!
Frankly, the fact that cars just conk out now and then and need hundreds or thousands of dollars in repairs- which must be done immediately if you’ve built a life that cannot be managed without a car- scares the hell out of me. If I was not financially stable, I’d be very uncomfortable taking that on and I’d take extra care to ensure that I had a way to manage life that didn’t depend on my car.
Many of the financially tenuous people I know end up with periodic bouts of extreme financial distress and debt due to unexpected car repairs.
Did you read the link I posted? Nearly 3 out of 4 don’t have enough money for necessities, let alone hobbies. You’re an interesting poster sven, but you live in this bubble that is very different from the rest of the world. I know that you like your life, but you’re very VERY far from average.
This is what I mean by a bubble. I can think of at least a dozen people who could give me a lift if my car broke down. Just as I’ve given rides to others that were without their wheels.
That’s really what this whole thread is about. You don’t NEED a license as long as you know a bunch of people who do. And that is usually how it works with teens who have chosen to forgo getting a license and/or a car. They’re not helpless and they’re unadventurous. They just can’t drive.
It really varies. My niece couldn’t wait to be able to drive. She got her learner’s permit and license each at the earliest possible age. She drives as much as possible. Every time her family goes on a trip she asks if she can drive.
On the other hand my wife’s nephew seems to show no interest in driving at all.
I’m 32 and have never had a license or even a learner’s permit. I’ve always lived in a city with quick access to public transportation and have never really needed to drive.
I did take permit test a couple times when I was 16 or 17 and failed miserably. Of course, I didn’t really even want to take the test in the first place, so I kind of half-assed it. My parents offered to teach me how to drive when I turned 16 (I have an older sister who didn’t get her license until she was 22, and basically learned on her own. My folks regretted not helping her and didn’t want the same thing to happen to me), but I turned them down. They were somewhat baffled by my disinterest in driving, and even though they never forced me to take driver’s ed or anything like that, I figured taking the exam would get them off my back about it. I guess it worked, as they came to the conclusion that “some people just aren’t meant to drive” after seeing how poorly I did.
Half a lifetime has passed since then, and I’m just now getting interested in learning, if for no other reason than being able to do it in case of an emergency. I have a daughter who is 11 and has told me numerous times she never wants to drive. I’ve told her I would like her to at least have a license just in case she would need to use it someday. Who knows, maybe we’ll both be getting our licenses at the same time, although I’d prefer to have mine before she has hers!
Dude, I work in education. I know a lot of teachers. If 3/4 of teachers can’t pay for necessities on $45,000 a year with bennies, they either have unrealistic expectations, very large one-earner families (and being a single income family is a luxury), are in much crazier debt than you are going to get into at the kinds of public 4-year universities that churn out most teachers, or are being whacked by medical expenses (which is indeed unfortunate).
Think about it, if teachers don’t make enough to survive, how does the other more-than-half of America that makes less than that manage to do anything? I know it’s a rough world out there. And if you want the single family home and all the accouterments, yeah, it adds up. But if you keep expenses low, and you make anything significantly more than minimum wage, you can travel. A cheap month or so in Belize costs about the average cable bill for a year. If you are for whatever reason a teacher who is not planning to work in the summer, even with airfare it is probably cheaper to spend those months in a low-cost-of-living country. If you are truly struggling, yeah, I get you can’t do it. But most people can and do if it happens to be their priority.
So I ask my friends for the occasional lift because I don’t have a car, I’m a parasite. But if you ask for a lift because your car breaks down, it’s just a natural and normal part of things?
FWIW, I think your own bubble is showing. I grew up in a fairly poor neighborhood, and it absolutely was not normal for teenagers to have a car. Cars cost money, and a family was lucky to have one car to share among the adults, with the teenagers being the last priority. One of my friends bought an old Bug in high school (mid '90s), another could sometimes borrow her mom’s hoopty. Other than that, your only real chance of driving was if mom happened to get off work early, dad happened to not be using the car at night, your aunt didn’t need to borrow the car to go grocery shopping, and your cousin wasn’t needing a ride to the hospital. Incidentally, I still don’t know a lot of people with cars. Of my grad school friends, one had one, and one sold hers after the first year. Different places are different, and people in different places have different needs.
Take it up with the New York Times. Personally, I trust their research more than your anecdotal experience.
Who called you a parasite? It wasn’t me.
Out of a group of friends, at least one is going to have access to a car. I know, I know, now I’m asking you to trust an anecdote. But I’m hardly alone in holding this opinion in this thread.
Having a license was not a choice for me, it was an expectation. Granted, I never tested the expectation (since I went out and got my license) but I am pretty sure my parents would have made me get one anyway since:
They were sick of driving me around.
We lived in suburban hell. Busses existed but unless you were going a great distance, it was far faster to walk.
They knew that I was headed off to University at the end of High School. So, this was really my only time before I was out on my own when I had regular access to a car so I could learn (since I could not afford a car for university).
They wanted me to have as many options as possible for the future.
Granted, I did not have a car all through university and I rarely had access to the one family car during high school. However, when I graduated uni, I got a job off the beaten path (read not in a major city with transit) and without my license I would have never been able to take it. (Still here, 12 years later.)
Once I could afford a home, we moved close to my job and I could walk (my husband took our one car). Now that we have kids, between doctor’s appointments and having to come get them for some reason (or meet with the teacher), I would feel uncomfortable during the day without a vehicle.
I can totally see not having a car for various reasons but not being able to drive one? That’s a freedom that I cannot imagine giving up. The choices it has and does give me are unparalleled.
ETA: when I didn’t have a car in University, I was still often the DD. Which meant I didn’t have to be afraid to drive with someone who had been drinking (I tended to only drink if it was somewhere walkable or at home).
It was the same for me and all of my friends and relatives. I remember thinking it odd that a friend’s mother didn’t drive.
This is where I’m having trouble with this thread. People seem incapable of imagining circumstances other than their own.
It can be expensive just to get a license. Toxylon pointed out that a driver would need to take a 1500 euro class, wherever Toxylon lives. It’s not so expensive in Australia, but a driving instructor costs AU$65 an hour, and that’s just for starters. So it sounds like you’re saying that me and my family-- there’s three adults in my house, none of us drive-- should all pay money to get a qualification we won’t use because you equate driving with freedom? Should we all get crane operator certificates too? We’d have the unparalleled freedom to legally operate a crane in case it ever came up.
Because outside of city dwellers with cheap and accessible public transport, it smells as though some parents are discouraging their children from a rite of passage in order to infantilize them and keep them at home and dependent. And some of the adults seem to be justifying a timid personality by claiming remote dangers/road rage/limited need and other rare events. I have a couple of nearby acquaintances who refuse to drive, and though they might claim they rarely bother others for rides, they actually frequently bother others for rides and we find them bothersome.
(It’s not the same for those of us who drive and have cars to help one another out in the case of car trouble; we trade favors. The non-drivers have nothing to offer but the occasional fiver for gas, which doesn’t cover wear and tear, time, and the general nuisance of waiting around while they run errands.)
What an odd statement. Yes, I did have a car accident and since that time I have grown to equate a driver’s license with freedom in a spectacularly stronger sense than I ever did before that accident.
I knew someone in high school who was like that. He just didn’t want to drive or have a license until he was an adult. I don’t recall if he gave any reason other than he just didn’t want to deal with it.
He became an actor and has enjoyed some success, although nothing really big. But I guarantee that unless you’ve been living in a cave, you have seen him. For example, he had a small speaking role in No Country for Old Men.
That is an odd statement. I’ve stumbled on the stairs, yet I still use them. Tripped over my shoelaces, still wearing shoes. I’ve been bumped into at work, been hit by another car while a passenger, witnessed a pedestrian clipped by a car in a parking lot…
The article claimed that teens were the ones who didn’t want to drive, no that parents were trying to stop kids from driving. Have any evidence that parents are doing such a thing?
The dangers of driving are not remote. I’ve been in accidents. You’ve been in accidents. Ambivalid nearly got killed. It’s a risk that most people accept as a matter of course, and then some of them will get nervous about much more remote dangers, like flying, terrorism, home invasions.
Sorry to hear. What’s your point? People who don’t drive are parasites?