Yes, it is a privilege. I grew up in a rural area (about 60 miles away from the nearest city) with no access to public transportation or services. It would take FOUR HOURS to walk to my nearest friend’s house. I also grew up dirt poor and couldn’t afford driving school. So, I had to convince friends to show me how to drive, or get friends’ parent to show me, and eventually during my senior year, I convinced one of my teachers to let me take the behind the wheel test in his car. All of this because without a license where I grew up, you’re never going ANYWHERE. No job, no friends, no mobility to get out of a shitty rural town. So yes, to not have had to do all of that, that is indeed privilege
Friends with cars, teachers that let you fucking borrow their car?! Yeah, didn’t have any of those options. Even if I did, didn’t have the money to buy one or get insured.
The test its self is also pretty difficult here, you are not passing it on a couple hours driving a friends car as practice.
I didn’t have that. If something was going on 50 miles away, I didn’t go.
Friends with cars, yes. And teachers who pitied me, yes. But it certainly want a couple of hours. We’re talking about years of sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving friend’s cars on dirt roads. I didn’t own a vehicle for another decade after that.
I don’t know about where you grew up, but what I grew up, even if you crossed that 60 mile trek to the nearest city, you’d still need a car to get to most places, because it’s fuckoff big and not well connected
Oh yeah, so privileged to have grown up unable to afford to learn to drive a car
Yes, it is a privilege. I grew up in a rural area (about 60 miles away from the nearest city) with no access to public transportation or services. It would take FOUR HOURS to walk to my nearest friend’s house. I also grew up dirt poor and couldn’t afford driving school. So, I had to convince friends to show me how to drive, or get friends’ parent to show me, and eventually during my senior year, I convinced one of my teachers to let me take the behind the wheel test in his car. All of this because without a license where I grew up, you’re never going ANYWHERE. No job, no friends, no mobility to get out of a shitty rural town. So yes, to not have had to do all of that, that is indeed privilege
Friends with cars, teachers that let you fucking borrow their car?! Yeah, didn’t have any of those options. Even if I did, didn’t have the money to buy one or get insured.
The test its self is also pretty difficult here, you are not passing it on a couple hours driving a friends car as practice.
I didn’t have that. If something was going on 50 miles away, I didn’t go.
Friends with cars, yes. And teachers who pitied me, yes. But it certainly want a couple of hours. We’re talking about years of sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving friend’s cars on dirt roads. I didn’t own a vehicle for another decade after that.
I don’t know about where you grew up, but what I grew up, even if you crossed that 60 mile trek to the nearest city, you’d still need a car to get to most places, because it’s fuckoff big and not well connected
Not owning a car in a suburb of Bumfuckville, USA is a much bigger disadvantage than not owning a car in NYC, Tokyo, or Hanoi.