I, 28f, still don’t have my driver’s license. I have taken lessons in the past in my late teens, and then a lot of barriers came into way. I have incredible anxiety and fear of crashing into someone’s car, and I crumble under confrontation. But, then my dad got cancer and died, the pandemic, and then I DID try to take the test about 3 years ago and FAILED. Ever since, I just haven’t bothered, because I live super close to everything I need. If I need to, I take transit downtown, and it’s cheaper than having to pay parking if I had a car.
But, I fear that this is something that will keep me from meeting a new partner. I just became single again 2 months ago, and I felt so lucky to have met someone who accepted that I couldn’t drive. We broke up for very unrelated reasons.
I want to get my license in the next few years, but at my own pace, and when I have the time and energy. It would just take a lot more focus compared to others.
Comments
I didn’t get my drivers liscense until 27 for various reasons.
I don’t have my drivers license yet and I’m 31 . I really don’t care about it but I need to force myself to get it 🥺 I live in nyc so it’s very easy to get by without one
I got mine at 17, but if you live somewhere where you don’t need a car to get where you need to go, there’s no shame in not having a license. Half the people who live in cities don’t have one. I live out in the sticks, so it’s a necessity, at least here in the US.
I’m 38 and don’t have a license. I’ve always lived in a place where it wasn’t really necessary, everything is within walking or transit distance. Insurance and parking and gas is too expensive to bother with a car.
What does “don’t have never had a driver’s license” mean? 😅
I’m 33 and never even had my learners. I have an anxiety disorder and ADHD. I have zero desire to drive. I’ve been happily married for 14 years and am a mother of two with another on the way.
I failed four times, I was 28 years and 10 months old when I finally got the paper. Started when I was 16. Anxiety killed me at every exam. You’re fine hon ☺️😘
38, never got my license and haven’t driven a car since I was in my teens. I always hated it so I moved to NYC and haven’t ever needed one 🤣
I got mine at about 30, when a new job I wanted required it. Previously had had decent public transport around me and also had a lot of anxiety with driving so had never bothered until then. Super happy I have it now, but I definitely saved a lot of money in those younger years by not having a car
I get it. I started small – just sat in the car daily, no pressure. Exposure therapy + a calm instructor changed everything. Fear isn’t permanent, but progress is
You fear this will be a barrier to meeting someone but you meet someone almost right away. I don’t think it’s a barrier for you!
I’m 35 and finally trying to get it. But yeah anxiety and no one in my life to push me to work on it has stopped me. I’m an avid biker, and can bike to work and most places I need to. Also I’ve never been in a financial place I could afford a car, so that’s an excuse I’ve used for a while. lol.
My best friend has been encouraging me to do it tho. I got my first permit last summer and only practiced a lil bit. I’m going next week to renew it and try again this year. I feel like I can mostly get the hang of city driving since I’ve biked for so long. But I’m absolutely petrified of the highway. I just have absolutely no desire to go that fast and definitely not be around others going that fast. I get pretty anxious just riding in cars on the highway with people. (I used to take a lot of long trips in my early 20s and that didn’t phase me then, but now I dunno I get so freaked out.)
I still don’t think I’ll own a car any time soon even if I manage to pass the test this year. But I want to at least have the fucking thing. ugghhhhh..
Anyways, you’re not alone…
30s & no license because I hate driving & live in a city.
I’m 35 and just got my learners. I am terrified to drive but I’m going to give it a shot. Luckily have never dated anyone who took issue with it. If you date men, I feel like it’s really not a big deal. Most straight guys are happy to have a passenger princess.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a big city, but I have a few friends who didn’t get licenses until 30 or later! And they’ve all transitioned to driving totally fine.
My husband had a license (foreign) but never drove until he was like 25. He didn’t have to ¯(ツ)/¯ my old school librarian was in her 50s and had never driven in her whole life; her husband used to drop her off and pick her up. It’s not a big deal.
I got mine around 22 after a breakup and I realized I didn’t want to wait for a guy to drive me again. I just realized that a lot of stupid people can handle driving, I could probably handle it too. I took it easy though, no freeways for like a year, I planned my driving routes down to every intersection and lane change. I hated driving but eventually like after a year it got better. I wouldn’t have been able to go to grad school if I didn’t figure it out.
43 never had one. I use public transport for work and get food and alcohol delivered 🙃
I didn’t get mine until I was 31. I grew up in a low income household so was never going to be able to afford a car when I was younger, and I then lived in cities until I moved to a more rural area. It was really socially isolating to not be able to drive, but I’d built it up in my head as being a hard and scary thing. Turns out as long as you learn to drive autos it’s actually pretty easy and road rules are mostly quite intuitive if you’re a sensible person!
I didn’t get my license until I was 25 and had failed multiple times before. It took a lot of work and help from others to get it done. It is what it is, although I will say I’m probably a much safer driver because of it.
Depending on your location and situation. I live where driving is absolutely necessary and got the license asap, but my friend got driven to school by her parents and later on paid an uber like service to go to work (expensive, but not extremely where i live), then now she gets her husband or the uber service to go around. Afaik she never gets a license, in her 30s, and still be fine (she can afford it with her salary). If you can still get around for necessities and functioning like an adult one way or another, i don’t think it’s such a disadvantage that you have to feel lucky finding someone who doesn’t mind it.
I’m 40 and I don’t drive. I think I’d be far too anxious behind the wheel of a car, I have unpredictable physical health issues that could make it dangerous, and frankly the idea of learning sounds too boring and difficult for me to bother. So I haven’t. Just not interested.
I got my license when I was 32 (:
In my teens and 20s I didn’t really need one, then when I was 27 I started travelling overseas and it was ok but at the same time I felt like I was missing out on so many adventures.
At 30 I moved to Australia, while in the city I could manage with public transport, but I finally settled in a more regional area and finding a job depended on it being close to me or me riding a bike in hot as hell weather, or spending a lot on taxis, always being late, etc.
At 31 got my learners “just to have it”, didn’t do anything about it for another year; I had a job where I had either coworkers or friends picking me up and driving me home every day, buying groceries meant I had to carry a heavy backpack on me while walking or riding a bike, I wanted the freedom, even just go and sit at the beach by myself on a Sunday afternoon. I had driven a handful of times before with friends but very few and far apart. I was done. I was even missing on opportunities at work because I couldn’t go and for example, meet with a customer, or go buy something we needed, work extra hs if I wanted to because I had no way to get home on my own, stuff like that. I saved the money, booked my test 2 months in advance, it needed to have a due date otherwise I would’ve kept procrastinating on it; paid for lessons, booked them so it would be every 2-3 days so it was still fresh, had a friend take me driving the day before and literally 1hr before the test to go over everything, took my test, passed. Such a liberating feeling.
I had all those fears as well, accidents, other drivers are terrible, what if I AM the bad driver, etc. For me it was a matter of building the confidence up, and thinking if a 15yo kid can do it, so can I.
I only drive automatic, but most cars are automatic here anyways so it doesn’t really bother me. And it’s a small town so traffic it’s not crazy, I’ve only driven once in a city and almost got a heart attack from it lol but now I’m 35 and have a couple years of driving in my record and lots more confidence so I don’t think it would be that scary if I had to do it again.
A driver’s license isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s good to have even if you never plan on owning or driving a car. Plenty of people do get it later in life, too.
I’m turning 34 this week and I’ve never had a driver’s license. I failed my driving test 4 times and then moved abroad. You aren’t alone and you’ll be okay!
My aunt lived in the city well into her 20s, so she never got one, and then she lived in the suburbs for 35 years before getting a license at 55. She said it was the best thing she ever did and absolutely loved having the freedom.
I failed my first test because of my anxiety. It happens. Just study a lot and do what you can to calm yourself when you go test. I ate like 4 bananas because they are supposed to help calm you, and I don’t even care if it was a placebo effect.
Good luck!
I do have a driver’s licence from my home country, but it’s not valid in the country I live in. I’ve chosen not to get one here because I don’t need it. If you can get by without one, great. I think you’re making something that’s a practical decision about shame. Feeling like you don’t deserve love because you can’t drive is… a harsh take.
I’m 37 and live in a big city and have multiple friends here who never learned how to drive because they don’t need to. Plenty of adults can’t drive.
A car is a mode of transportation. You don’t say where you live, but some societies have made driving into a right of passage (looking at you America). But in places with decent infrastructure, it’s just one option of many and plenty of people prefer to walk, cycle, or take a train, tram, or bus instead.
Honestly, I’m almost 50 and I haven’t had mine. It isn’t the end of the world but and also it has limited me in terms of my independence as an adult. I have struggled to maintain friendships because it is such a given that you should be able to just pick up and drive to go visit or meet somewhere. It kinda sucks to always have to be planning around transit.
I would really like to have it, but I have a congenital nerve deformity and my left eye is essentially paralyzed. It moves inwards but doesn’t move out, so my peripheral vision isn’t great. I also had a mild TBI in 2021 and it caused my visual processing to be even more problematic. I had no idea how much I was actually impacted until my physiotherapist suggested I have a functional vision assessment. I had significant deficits all across the board in visual processing. Apparently it is very common after concussions and with my congenital thing it was worse.
I’m doing vision rehabilitation and am half way through the program. My specialist optometrist said I should be able to start driving now with corrective glasses.
I will never likely do long road trips or anything crazy, but being able to drive 2 minutes to the grocery store or pick my kiddo up from school would be really freeing.
If you can do it, I would say the earlier the better the younger you are the more “plastic” your brain is and the easier it will be to build the muscle memory that would make it easier. I figure if I can do it, almost anyone can…
I tried for two years to help my coworker, now 47, learn to drive. He stressed out too much when he was driving and after 2 years decided not to continue. He still wishes he could drive.
I’m 40, got my license at 18, lost it after a TBI due to seizures at 28, got it back, annnnddd it looks like I’ll lose it again due to seizures.
A drivers license doesn’t mean what it once did. This younger generation is drowning in debt from the get-go and they see through the consumerism veil, seeing cars for what they are – a money suck. It is a money suck to the point that laws got put in place for uber/lyft drivers because the cost of gas, upkeep, and insurance meant the paycheck ended up being less than federal min wage ($7.25/hr).
There are facts in your corner.
ADHD correlates with driving issues and I have it. I stopped worrying and shaming myself about driving after realizing it had something to do with the diagnosis, which came at age 38. I actually now accept that it’s weird that it’s this hard for me and probably means I’m saving lives not driving. I live in a city and my husband drives or I uber / take public transit.
I know several older people who live in NYC who never got a license.
If you live in a city with decent public transportation (a rarity in the US, I know, but seems to be your situation), you may not need one.
You can take it at your own pace and if it never happens, that’s ok. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.
I just got mine 12 months ago and I’m 45! I’ve been living in different countries and ended up in France. Doing/learning for the exam for the ‘code de la route’ in french was a challenge and a bit.
Otherwise I have been fine all my life, I have had a small scooter which doesn’t need a licence.
Having it now helps with taking our dogs further for hikes, doing monthly shopping and picking up large items on my own. But that’s pretty much it. In most European cities you do not need a car.
I got mine at 31. I lucked out and had an incredible instructor who was totally understanding of my anxiety about driving. She’d let me stop if I needed, would stop and ask if I was okay after mistakes and most of all was just amazing chat so I totally forgot I was even nervous!