This is interesting to me. Like, it’s not at all surprising given the intense car culture of L.A. in particular and the rest of the United States in general, but from my perspective as a 30 year old man who has never had a driver’s license and has lived the majority of his life in or around New York City, it’s actually weird to me that most people have to drive. I’d be perfectly happy to never have to drive in my lifetime. When people talk about cars being a form of freedom, it conflicts with a lot of the reasons why I didn’t learn to drive as a teen — I had a huge fear of becoming trapped in the suburbs, and so I stuck with trains and the city because I knew I’d be happier there than if I got financially mired in driving around the Hudson Valley. I’ve always seen driving as a thing that would place limits on me.
It’s also not liberating to have a car/license because of the financial/material limitations it puts on you. I feel like owning a car would be one more thing preventing me from living wherever I wanted; tying me down to a certain area. I am 18 and don’t have my license. When I get my license, I plan on using it only for long car-trips to visit people who live out of town or to go to concerts that are far away.
