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Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

To your point, the people who use/think they need cars probably have a lot of misconceptions about not having them.

But at least they’ve both had and have not had cars.

Not to your point, if you’ve never had a car or even experienced the joys of driving itself or simply being able to go far away on a moment’s notice, your “gladness” of its avoidance may ring as hollow as the blind individual who is “glad” they aren’t bound to the tyranny of visual entertainments. I mean, that’s a nice story you’re telling yourself, but do you really have to information to know?

In particular, once you have children, a vehicle becomes a near-necessity anywhere outside a city.

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> simply being able to go far away on a moment’s notice

Buy intercity bus ticket on internet, 15 minute bus journey to where the intercity buses congregate, get on bus. Or train, but Irish Rail likes to charge roughly 2x as much for same-day intercity tickets as next day.

Now, if you want to go to the middle of nowhere, that's harder, I suppose, but towns and cities are easy enough (caveat: Ireland's transport system is rather poorly designed and ~everything radiates out of Dublin, so this probably only works well if you live _in_ Dublin).

As I say, I do plan to get around to learning to drive at some point (my last attempt was foiled by covid; I got a provisional license in Feb 2020), but honestly it's hard to prioritise.

Kids would be more of an issue, granted. I mostly walked or got the bus to school, but I do think that’s less common these days. As a late-30s gay man, not something I have to personally worry about too much, tho.

Few issues highlight just how different the US is from most European countries as well as public transit. Intellectually we all know the US is huge but we don't have a conceptual model of just how crazy big it is in comparison to any European country.

> Not to your point, if you’ve never had a car or even experienced the joys of driving itself or simply being able to go far away on a moment’s notice

I own a car after living for years without one, and for every “I can go away on a moment’s notice” (what they sell you) there is 100 times you spend in traffic at rush hour moving at 4mph.

There’s something truly liberating in living in a city where you can just take the bus to a fancy restaurant, get drunk and not put other lives in danger. Or just walk to the park, the playground or the library.

Or I don't drive into the city at rush hour (usually, sometimes circumstances are different but I try to take the train). But I use my car all the time.

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