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.

I just don’t need one, so never bothered with it.

We have good public transport and I believe reading something on the way to be a better use of that time.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

!fuckcars@lemmy.world

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.

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.

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.

As an experienced driver, highway driving is much easier, and relaxing, then street driving.

Familiarity breeds contempt of course. But genuinely, on the highway there are less variables to account for so it’s easier mentally

I love driving, I find it very relaxing, opens your perspective to see the world. I grew up driving, my family always drove, everybody I know drove, got my license as soon as possible. That’s what everybody around me was doing too.

I think parts of the world were you see driving as being more luxurious, or difficult to have, or just unaffordable, then driving becomes a status symbol, it’s not as universal, but also the infrastructure is less universal because most people are on foot or motorbikes. In those contexts driving can be more stressful than using the other methods.

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…

So, what’s your reason to not drive a car

I simply don’t need to, nor do I want to. I live in a country with good public transport - in a city with comparably well working public transport. There simply is no need for me. There never was.

I can get around the city either by train (“normal” trains and subways) or by bus. On weekends there is a 24 service for all trains and subways every 8-20 minutes (depending on line). There are also night busses connecting party areas with the nearest train stations and the inner city with the outskirts.

In the mornings and afternoons on weekdays there are additional commuter busses and trains and subways on most lines so the service is scheduled on a minute basis on some lines for some time during rush hours. The “worst” it gets is every 30 minutes in the middle of the night.

And if I don’t want to take public transport I can always use my bike or my electric scooter. The bike lanes are not Netherlands quality, but they’re okay. It’s also fun to drive by traffic jam having my inner monologue making fun of alle the people waiting hours over hours on the streets 😄

The great thing is: Some time ago the government and the individual public transport providers of the cities and areas made a country-wide ticket for all public transport. So I can just hop on a bus in my city, drive to the train station, enter a regional train that goes to another city in another federal state, come out the train station and take the nearest bus I want without having to pay anything except the monthly fee for the ticket or checking if the ticket is valid in that area.

When I want to take longer trips further away I’ll likely take a train on our highspeed railway network covering basically the whole country (not covered by the ticket I mentioned). It’s notorious for being delayed or having issues, but my individual experience is much better than in the memes that exist.