Ask Lemmy

I never did. I got a learners permit at 16 or so, practiced with my parents for a number of years and renewed the learning permit at least once without testing for a full license, but eventually stopped and let it expire.

I have pretty bad anxiety issues, which driving has proven one of the triggers for, and unlike everything else that triggers it, for driving it got worse with exposure instead of better. I actually wasn't even that nervous at first, but every time I'd make a mistake, or witness someone else make one, it'd come to mind every time I'd practice driving, because I didn't want to accidentally kill someone from a lapse in judgment, and eventually every little thing built up so much that one day, my father handed me the keys and asked me to try taking us to a store, and I had a full-on fight-or-flight panic response just sitting in the drivers seat. At that point I finally deicided that it just wasn't responsible of me to be on the road if after several years I still couldn't even think straight while driving, and Ive never done it since, and ended up moving states a couple years in order to live somewhere that going with out a car is at least somewhat viable.

To be honest, Ive actually been happier since, its a huge expense that I don't have, and Ivr found I can get a decent amount of exercise without having to go an intentionally make myself do it, just from walking a lot. But of course, it's only comfortable in the kind of dense urban area with decent (by US standards) public transit that in the US seems to exist only in a handful of places, the cost of living for which eat a lot of the savings from not having a car in the first place.