by Susan Keeping

Created on: September 25, 2007   Last Updated: June 17, 2008

I am over fifty years old and I have never learned how to drive. There are times when I have wished that I did have my driver's license, but overall I don't really miss it at all.

I didn't need to learn how to drive because I grew up in Toronto, Canada. Toronto has a very extensive public transportation system; a subway that covers most of the city, and numerous bus and streetcar routes. There really is nowhere that you have to get to in Toronto that does not have bus or subway access or that is not within easy walking distance of public transportation. So, most kids who grow up in Toronto never learn to drive, or at least most of the friends that I grew up with in Toronto have never learned how to drive. We are a generation of non-drivers.

As I grew older, I developed some mobility problems that actually make traveling on many buses impossible. Luckily, most new buses now have low floors without stairs to climb; I do have the use of a service for disabled persons that offers door to door service and I don't know what I would do without that. So, that is yet another reason I don't have to learn to drive.

Other than my own personal reasons, there are many other reasons why it's better to be a non-driver:

1. If you are a non-driver you don't have to pay exorbitant insurance rates or worry that your rates will go up if you are in an accident, whether or not it was your fault.

2. If you are a non-driver you don't have to make the trip to a government office to renew your driver's license every year on your birthday.

3. If you are a non-driver you don't have to pay those ridiculously high gasoline prices.

4. If you are a non-driver you don't have to worry about high repair bills and the expensive upkeep of a car.

5. If you are a non-driver you don't have to worry about getting a ticket for speeding or illegal parking.

6. If you are a non-driver you don't have to change your tires in the winter, or worry about dealing with a flat tire on the highway late at night or while it is raining or snowing.

7. If you are a non-driver you can drink as much as you want when you are out for the evening and know you are not going to drive drunk.

8. If you are a non-driver you can sleep on the long four-hour drive to the cottage, relaxed in the knowledge that someone else is doing the driving.

9. And lastly, if you are a non-driver you can get to know your friendly, neighborhood taxi driver.

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