Autism

I can drive, but I’m like a sponge for everyone’s road rage — I don’t often get angry myself but all that negative energy just drains the shit out of me, I have an autistic meltdown almost every time I drive.

I stopped driving regularly about 20 years ago (10 years before I was diagnosed with autism) and I saw a huge reduction in my day to day stress.

About 15 years ago, I moved to a city where I can walk or bike everywhere, and driving just isn’t an issue. Highly recommended.

I drive. I like driving. I have apparently always liked the car -- as an infant my parents would throw me in my car seat and drive up and down the road to make me fall asleep -- though I am very, very, very much not a "car person".

I still didn't get my license until I was 18, though, because learning to drive was very stressful for me. But once I got a handle on it, I think I've become rather good at it.

When I moved to Europe everyone said (and continues to say) that I really need to have a car. It's not just my family, it's friends, colleagues, acquaintances... Strangers on the train. I did transfer my license and have rented a car a handful of times to move furniture or clean up after moving out of my last place.

Everyone here is convinced I need a car for my daily life, but my kids, my spouse, and I all have bikes. We have a large bike trailer for big purchases at a distance, and we can do what we need to do in town or on the trains. I don't see the point in owning, fueling, and maintaining a beast of a machine just for some minor conveniences.

I drive, but that's because I live in the US where most cities have shit public transit.

Also, I haven't seen to my crazy ass judgemental Trumper parents in 5 years, so that's not a problem for me.

Why would it hurt someone's parents that they don't drive ? feels like such a strong choice of words.

I drive. I was super excited to. When I was 14 I started mentally preparing. I would pay attention to street names and intersections and directions, which lanes did which. I spent time on an early version of Google Maps practicing navigation- how to get from my house to my friend's house, the school, my grandparents, the mall, etc. I would walk or ride my bike and try to purposefully explore and learn the entire southern half of my city and suburbs. I got a copy of the state-issued driver's manual and read it multiple times. I bought a cheap MadCatz Mini racing wheel + pedals for the PS1/2 and practiced using it in tons of games- Grand Theft Auto, Mercenaries, NASCAR Thunder, Gran Turismo, etc. I went and took the test to get my Learner's Permit the very first day I could. I was a year younger than most of my friends, but still one of the first to get a license.

I drove a lot until I was almost 30, when the pandemic hit. Then I started working from home. I had recently got a relatively new xar in 2018, but my wife's car waa old, so she started using mybcse mostly. One day I went to start her car and found an electrical issue. After a bunch of investigating... We went down to 1 car, and her old car is still sitting in our garage, waiting to be traded in whenever we do get around to buying our next car.

Furthermore, my retina in my dominant eye detached itself. I had surgery to re-attach it. It was successful, but my vision in that eye is only about half of what it once was, and my brain swapped to my other eye. I can drive, both legally and safely, but I do sometimes struggle to read street names or exit signs. So nowadays I mostly just drive the same familiar local streets that I know.

Also my wife gets carsick as a passenger, so even before all that she would often insist on driving.

I tend to drink less than most people so i'm occasionally DD.

I ride motorcycles. If you mean has it hurt my parents in the sense of transporting them, no, they have their own car. If you mean has it hurt my parents in some abstract parental/emotional sense, maybe, they seem quite pushy and always ask "when are you thinking of getting a car", "you need a car", "what about when you have a family", etc.

I will never use a car as my primary transport, too big, too heavy, too boring, on a bike I can squeeze through traffic, go through twisties, learn to maintain my own vehice, all being far cheaper than owning a cage.

I'll likely get a car license at some point, if I ever need to move stuff, but that'd only be short-term rentals.

I drive. I used to drive a school bus, too. Basically can drive anything on wheels so long as it's not hauling toxic waste.

I got a driver's license but drive as little as possible (practically never). My parents think it's good that I got it and are sure there will be a point where I will be very glad that I have it, but I don't think the time and money will ever pay itself back. Trains are just better.

I have a license. I enjoy driving. But if I generally only do it if I'm going to another city or doing someone a favor (I don't drink and don't like loud places like pubs but I seem to find myself around them a lot lol)

I don't. I tried learning but it was overwhelming and stressful and I didn't want to make a scene, so I quit.

My parents thought it was (both dead now, they didn't change their minds) pathetic and stupid that I don't drive. They also assumed a bunch of shitty things about why I quit the lessons too.

I need to drive where I live.

It is kind of liberating for me. Plus I don't get motion sickness/vertigo if I'm the driver, unlike being a passenger. I follow the rules so well (unlike everyone else on the road), one of my favourite ways to unwind is driving with music.

That said, going out costs money. I cant afford to go on a Sunday drive...

Forget your parents emotions. This is likely hardest on you. Hopefully they will help you find other ways of getting around.

I dont to my great annoyance. I really should have got my licence before I went to uni.

Fortuntely, somehow, the public transport isnt that bad in the rural area I live at.

Hopefully will get my licence pretty soon. Planning too before summer.

Yes. I can drive around in cars and I like it. But public transport and bike are generally the better options for me. Mostly because it's cheaper and it gives me the daily dose of training. It would be different if I lived somewhere without good public transportation and long distances to commute.

My parents don't care. Why do yours? Is it about the topic of driving itself or do they have something else in mind?

I don't drive. I used to, but I'm not fucking rich, and I don't want to kill anyone. I can walk, so I do that. Just moved to a place with busses. They even run sometimes, too!

If I told my mom, I'm sure she'd quietly nag me about it every time we interacted. She's got a very right/wrong dichotomous viewpoint, and driving is good, while having to walk is for those with moral failings (like poverty!).

I do and I really don't have a choice due to the awful design of where I live. iirc it's the 11th worst city in all of the US for walkability and there's literally hardly any public transportation at all 🙃

not even that it's 14th in all of the US for worst drivers too 😭

part of the reason it sucks so much is because it's literally 3 cities that were all arguing instead of designing a fucking place for people to live then they all merged into one mega city?? then just didn't fix any issues anyways???

there's not even a sidewalk to my work that's an 8 minute drive away I hate it here

I drive. I would not be able to do most of the jobs I've done without a license. My last job was an hour drive to work, get in the work truck, drive anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours to the job location, then drive to all the facilities in that location, then back to the shop, and another hour home.

I literally spent more time behind a steering wheel than I didn't at that job.

I wish I didn't. I think I got my license before I graduated college. Some friends were sick of it and had me take the drivers test on one friends car (road trips and such). Then my original field was limited and had to drive to work. ugh. Once I was working in or near the city my driving went down to mostly shopping and some doctors. My wife drives when I can get her to. She knows I hate it. Cars just suck in every way shape and form. Inefficient, bad for the environment including global warming and clean air, dangerous. The most likely way anyone is likely to physically hurt or worse yet kill someone is behind the wheel of a car. public transit is great in places that it is, bikes are better, walking is the tops.

I use my car MAYBE once a week if we leave town for a hike or something, otherwise I use my bike to go work everyday or just walk/metro downtown. I'd love to just be able to rent a car for cheap when I need one and not have to waste money on maintaining a car and paying for all this superfluous crap.

I drive. I really enjoy it most of the time, but I don't do a whole lot of city driving which does get annoying if there is a lot of it.

I do. My fiancée does not. I find the whole experience terrifying, she's filled with such terror and anxiety she'd be a danger on the road.

0/10 on the whole experience, hate cars and wished I didn't need to drive.

I have a licence and a car, but i don't do much driving. Never really liked it. Thankfully i have support workers to take me to different places and appts and shit, so i don't need to do much driving.

I got my DL when I was like 16. I practically only drove to and from school for a while (at first because extracurriculars and second because getting out early - I'd ride the bus otherwise). Never something I've liked doing.

I drive because I like driving. My partner and I often bring our dog on beach adventures across the province (or even across provincial lines), and I have motion sickness, agoraphobia and sensory issues so I can't take the bus.

I motorcycle to work though to be more nimble and park for free, and I even ride in winter with studded tires. If it's not nice out, I work from home.

I also maintain both of my vehicles myself, I find it satisfying.

More on topic, two of my sisters don't drive, but we live in a big enough city that it doesn't matter. Our parents don't care.

I drive. I'm not sure if my kids will, either way I don't mind. We'll work it out together.

I love in a city with decent public transport and have planned to minimize the need for a car as much as possible. So basically i don't even have license, basic services are within a walking distance, public transport is free and rather good and workplace has their own transportat as well.

Maybe my mother is disappointed, mostly because the remnant from society era and a car being a status symbol, but at the same time we're not close enough for me to notice it or care.

I begged my (extended) family for motorcycle licence money when I was 16 (eq of 2500€ now) and I was fairly content with that, because it allowed me to gain early mobility and some limited autonomy in a very rural place in Germany. When I became 18 my parents hard-pressed me into aquiring the car licence and they paid half of it (eq of 3800€ now) - ostensible reason was that I could drive my sibling to places, but now I think they came from the rural mindset that has to ensure the mobility of offspring or doom them to a class downspiral.

I really didn't want to aquire the licence, because it was hard, expensive and I hated cars as "annoying halfbreed" (my mindset then was gatekeeping roads to motorcycles or large trucks/utility vehicles), but in the end I got it.

From the POV of ten years later, I have moved to a major city where I don't need a car in the everyday, because the city is walkable and has functioning public transit. I'm still glad I have the licence, because it allows me to rent vans for moving big or heavy things for me or friends, but I would also survive without it.

If you can aquire the ability to drive, but choose against it, you lowkey need to figure out or choose your life goals and income options geographically, because transportation is a basic need of life. What I mean by that are questions like these: Where do you live or where do you want to live? Do you or will you have access to public transit or other alternatives to driving? Do you have or will you have a dependable social environment that you can rely on for transportation (regularly)?

In the end I would focus less on parents and more on your own needs and wants, because your parents won't be there forever. If they continue to harass you after you made a reasoned decision, that is a them problem, but I also get that if that is, were or will be the case that it is hard to accept emotionally.

(English is not my first language).

I live in London. I dont feel I need to. My parents are indifferent. I could imagine I would want to if I was not living in the city though

I drive, my parents and peers pressured me a lot and I got my license as soon as I could at 16. Now I'm 30. In the past couple of years I've started living on my own and work remote. I hate driving and have started to realize I am really bad at it. Each drive feels like I'm rolling the dice.

I think if I had been less insecure when I was younger I would have never gotten my license. It's a real shame to me that driving is necessary for so many. We need better public transport🫩

Best of luck stranger. Not driving is a shitty thing for your parents be disappointed over. Stay safe

I have a license and access to a car. I'm in America so I sort of have to.

What do you mean, you people?

i don't drive because of how my best friend and her parents died 22 years ago.

my own dad is too dead to care, but before that he was happy that i at least learned to use public transport. i'm too far away from my mother now to care what she thinks about that.

ETA: come to think of it, my mom was the one who perpetuated the fireball lie...

I wish I didn't have to drive. Unfortunately, it's required to get by, even in the city. I moved into the city specifically to increase how much I can walk or take public transit. I just wish the transit was better.