Nearly a third of us can’t drive.
That’s the reality. There are people like me who can’t see well enough to drive, and a lot of other people with all kinds of disabilities–physical, sensory, mental health and chronic health conditions–that make driving unsafe. There are also people who are too young to drive, people who can’t afford to drive, people who don’t know how to drive, including immigrants from other countries where driving wasn’t so wrapped up in notions of adult- and person-hood. And there are people who have aged out of driving: 35 percent of women over the age of 75 don’t drive...
And when kids can’t safely or comfortably get somewhere on their own, the responsibility of chauffeuring usually falls to moms, eating up their afternoons and weekends. Not every family has the resources or flexibility for this chauffeuring. Research by Rutgers Professor Dr. Kelcie Ralph found that young adults who grew up in a family without a car completed less education, had lower incomes, and faced more unemployment than their peers who were raised in families with consistent car access–even when controlling for family wealth, residential location, family composition and race. Car dependency is bad both for families with car access and for those without.
