7 Lessons I Learned From Not Owning a Car
By: Viola Altiste
Tags: Driving, Life Lessons, Cars, Advice and Opinion, Transportation

7 Lessons I Learned From Not Owning a Car

When I was a teenager, I was excited to get my licence. I had an incredibly busy schedule as I was involved with several music groups at my school and in the community. Naturally, I wanted to be independent and drive myself everywhere instead of relying on my parents for rides.

I grew up in the Canadian prairies where driving is a huge part of the culture. Public transit is available in urban areas but has a bad reputation of only being used by underprivileged people. It’s uncommon to choose to take the bus to save money or reduce environmental impact. Once you get your licence, you are never to be seen on public transit ever again.

My parents had opted not to buy a car for me. Therefore even once I had my licence, I was often unable to drive myself to school or my music commitments anyway.

Dealing with judgemental peers in high school was a huge source of stress in my teenage years. Not only was I the weird music kid, but I was also the loser who didn’t have a car. I wanted to be like the other kids and drive myself everywhere, but instead, I had to write a 10-page essay to my parents about why I wanted to borrow their car. Even then, they would often insist on driving me.

As a 26-year-old today, I still do not own a car. I learned a lot of important lessons over the years that I probably wouldn’t have thought of if I had been spoiled with a car as a teenager.

1. Driving is a privilege

A lot of the kids I went to high school with came from privileged families, including myself. My parents not buying a car for me was not a matter of them being unable to afford it, it was their own choice.

When I went away to university, I met many people who were like me. I also met several people who were older than me and did not even have a driver’s licence.

It was reassuring to see that not owning a car and taking public transit was socially acceptable. In fact, university students often receive a bus pass for unlimited transit rides during the academic year to discourage driving to school.

Even the simple act of learning how to drive is a privilege in itself, regardless of whether you own a car or not. Driver’s education courses and in-car lessons can be costly. The instructors rely on the fact that your parents will allow you to practice with their car outside of lesson times. Not everyone has access to a practice vehicle or parents who will be patient enough to help them learn to drive.

Additionally, some people are unable to drive through no financial fault of their own. Certain medical conditions, such as epilepsy, may prohibit an individual from operating a vehicle safely.

2. Owning a car is a huge responsibility

Taking your car in for its routine maintenance sessions is time-consuming and expensive. As a student, time is valuable. Anything you can do to maximize your study time is crucial to living a balanced life.

Both of my parents have countless anecdotes from their student years about times when attending to their car troubles prevented them from focusing on their studies. My mom almost missed an exam because her car wouldn’t start, as an example.

As a student, I moved to different cities to pursue my undergraduate and master’s degrees. Canadian cities are very spread out and driving from one major city to the next can take several days.

For instance, I moved from the prairies to Southern Ontario for my master’s degree. One might argue it’s worth it to do the long drive so you have your car there, but I personally didn’t want to drag a car halfway across the country. I would have opted to fly home for the holidays anyway so that would mean leaving a car parked somewhere for weeks or months at a time.

Owning a car as a full-time university student is a huge liability, in my opinion. All the time and money you put into maintaining a car should instead be put into your education.

3. Driving is stressful and anxiety-inducing

We take the ability to drive for granted and forget that it is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced. This is why you must take driving lessons and tests to obtain a licence.

I’ve gone up to a year without driving and getting behind the wheel after that amount of time is bizarre. I fear left turns and will take incredibly convoluted routes to avoid them. I also don’t like fighting to get the parking space right in front of the store and prefer parking farther away from the store where I feel more comfortable.

During the pandemic, however, I have been renting cars frequently to avoid potential Covid exposures on public transit. This has helped me improve my driving skills and confidence behind the wheel that deteriorated during my non-driving years.

The first time I rented a car, I was terrified to make a left turn out of the rental lot. I turned right and got lost in the side streets trying to get to a traffic light where I could turn left with an arrow. Now, I navigate the streets with confidence and make all kinds of left turns like there’s no tomorrow.

All this to say, if you are scared or anxious behind the wheel, it’s completely normal. Don’t let people tell you that you are childish or immature for not having a licence or not wanting to drive. Just because driving is effortless for many people does not mean everyone feels that way. For me, my driving fears were alleviated by getting more experience through driving rental cars, but for someone else, it may not be that simple.

4. Not owning a car is one of the best ways to save money

Currently, I am working as a professional musician. Music is an incredibly competitive field to get a job and even when you do find one, the pay is not great. I was one of the fortunate ones to get a symphony position at a young age, but even then, I rely on multiple income streams to make a sustainable living.

I was ignorant about the true cost of a car until I got to university. Buying a yearly parking pass from the school costs a ridiculous amount of money and doesn’t even guarantee you a parking space if your assigned lot has filled up. The biggest financial stress for my classmates with cars was dealing with these ridiculous parking fees, never mind all the other typical car expenses.

Not having to worry about paying for a car in the past decade has been a lifesaver in these times of financial uncertainty, especially with Covid. During the lockdown, I’m thankful that I didn’t have to pay the insurance and licensing fees for a car that would be sitting in a parking lot 95% of the time.

I don’t plan to continue my car-less lifestyle forever and want to own a car one day; at which point I will be in much better financial shape to deal with the associated costs. I don’t even want to think about how much money I could have spent on car expenses in the past ten years.

5. Learning how to navigate cities without a car is a valuable skill

My first year of undergrad was the first time in my life where I really started using public transit. I had moved to a different city and no longer had access to my parents’ vehicle and chauffeur services.

Smartphones existed back then, but many people still had flip phones. I had an iPhone but it didn’t have a data plan. When I needed to go on an adventure off-campus, I would go on the transit website and print out maps of where I needed to wait for the bus and what direction to walk to my destination. I also printed out the bus schedule for all the buses I took frequently.

This diligence paid off when I started travelling by myself to larger cities such as Toronto or Montreal. I was already used to navigating public transit in smaller cities, so taking the subway in Toronto wasn’t a big deal to me.

Renting a car is always an option when you travel. However, driving in an unfamiliar city or foreign country can be stressful. Not to mention, you will save money by opting out of a rental car.

Learning how to use public transit is a skill I probably wouldn’t have cultivated if I had been driving everywhere. If you’ve never had to find a way of getting somewhere without your car, you may not think to take the bus or call a taxi when your car won’t start on frigid winter mornings.

6. Active commuting is awesome

When I was doing my master’s degree, taking public transit daily was starting to take a toll on my mental health. The bus often arrived late and was very crowded at peak times. I had no plans of buying a car as driving to school would have been even worse, but I also wanted to find a way I could take the bus less frequently.

I purchased a used bicycle to experiment with active commuting and immediately fell in love. It combined the best of both worlds — independence and saving money. Other benefits included weight loss, extra cardio exercise, and overall better mental health.

Cycling was faster than driving or taking the bus as I could avoid traffic on the bicycle paths. I could also park my bicycle right in front of the building where I had class; good luck doing that with a car.

My bicycle was a life-saver during this pandemic. I didn’t want to buy a car that would sit in a parking lot but I also didn’t want to take the bus if I could avoid it. Having an excuse to get outside and exercise was also beneficial to my mental and physical health during the lockdown.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I wouldn’t have thought of cycling everywhere if I had a car.

7. You are just paying for convenience

When you think about the 24 hours in a day, how many of those hours are you actually driving your car? The answer will depend on where you work and how often you go out to do errands, but I guarantee your car is parked more than it is being driven.

When I was a student, it was easy to hop on a bus or ride my bicycle to school. It wasn’t as nice as driving may have been, but the same goal of going from point A to point B was achieved.

My apartment was just under a kilometre away from a grocery store. I walked there and back with my week’s groceries. I couldn’t justify owning a car to drive 800 metres to a grocery store once a week.

Even now as a young professional, I have found ways to get to work and do all my errands without my own vehicle. However, I now live in a smaller city that is less accessible by transit and cycling so I have relied more on rental cars, taxis, and rides from friends than I have in the past.

My point is that your car simply exists for convenience. You are basically paying thousands of dollars for an on-call transportation device that sits in your driveway for most of its life.