My son doesn't have a Canadian license, he now wishes he had listened to me when I told him to get his test done in the UK before moving over. He'd been driving for about 2 years in the UK but didn't bother taking the test.

He gets out and about a fair bit, has friends with cars and goes to various places in Ontario - including Montreal - and while it costs him a fortune to get to work, he still thinks it is cheaper than owning and insuring a car.

The only downside he has come across is that the management of his branch refuse to promote him unless he has a drivers license. They say he is classed as 'irresponsible' without one! Personally, I think he's responsible in not having a car (or license) as he likes to have a drink (or 3) after work!

I don't drive - don't have a license - but it doesn't stop me going places.

If I lived and worked in Vancouver, I would not own a car, I would still maintain a license for renting one when needed, but I would not own one since transit is mostly acceptable in Vancouver.

I get the not owning a car part if one lives in an area with transit that works for them, its the never having a license at all, even when I used transit and had no car, I still found times when I needed a car for something like needing to get to the airport before transit started, or a shift change at work for a few days that ended after transit stopped or needing to go across the border for something and such.

+1

I have nothing against those who can use transit and choose not to have a car, but its the not having a license bit that puzzles me.

A possible combination of things with me.

I remember my dad teaching my mum to drive - on the beach at Weston-super-Mare. Lots of jerky movements, stalling and all the rest of it and us kids falling about with laughter in the back.

And my mum getting cross and saying "you wait til you're learning to drive."

Maybe there was a part of me that didn't want her to laugh at me

I was never confident enough. I was someone who when out on my bike and approaching a parked car would stop and check it was clear to go around, rather than do it while moving.

When in a car driven by someone else and cars parked with a car coming from the opposite direction I was always amazed that they had the confidence to keep going and not scrape alongside either the oncoming car or the parked one. Especially if it was a bus coming the other way.

Maybe these were natural fears that would be overcome, but not to me.

You know, even on the dodgems at the fair or on the pier, I would never drive one myself. The most 'daring' I would get would be putting my foot on the pedal.

Now, having said all that, one day I did get the nerve to ride a dodgem on my own. And you couldn't get me out of the car I enjoyed it so much and had another couple of goes. And it wasn't because I enjoyed bumping into others

I do think, however, that in the main I wasn't keen on the money involved. I was a low paid civil servant (like most of them ) so I wouldn't have had much money left to enjoy myself.

I already knew from school that I didn't "exam" well and I imagined failing the driving test over and over.

And as much as people complain about "the buses" (including me) I've never lived anywhere where getting around on them wasn't easy.

My mother has never held a full licence. She learned to drive about 40 years ago, took the road test once, failed, and as far as I know, never sat behind the wheel of a car again. She claimed not to have the time to take more lessons and another test, but at that time was able to use her learner's licence to ride a moped. When the regs were changed she was "grandfathered in" and never needed to take a road test for her moped. She rode her moped to and from work for the next 25 years, eventually giving up and accepting a lift to and from work from my father.

VR will make travel obsolete before long anyway.

REKAL - We Can Remember It for You