>>51285272I live in Ireland and tons of people don't know how to drive here. Same as the UK and lots of Europe. We simply don't have the same car culture over here as America does.
In America you learn to drive when you're like 16 and it's a big milestone, over here you cannot drive at 16, 18 is the youngest and it takes a long time to pass the test along with insurance being incredibly expensive so most people don't start learning until their mid 20's when they'll have the money to invest in to it, if they bother to do so at all.
I have been trying to do it for the past 3 years but lockdown made it incredibly difficult because of all the delays, took 1.5 years just to sit my provisional test (learner's permit in America) before they finally gave up waiting for things to open back up and allowed you to take it on your PC. Over here you need to do 12 lessons before you can sit your full test and the backlog of driving instructors is so huge that I still haven't finished all 12 yet (I'm at 11 though).
Just taking the test, paying for the license/medical tests and lessons alone, I'm already out €1,000 and I haven't rented a car for the actual test, or paid to sit the actual test, which will cost another €300 per attempt. If you don't have a car already or have a parent's car that you can use (which you probably won't as you'll likely have moved out) then you have to shell out more money for practice lessons, which are €50 a pop, probably another €600 or you won't have enough experience to pass the test.
Insurance will cost €3,000 as I'm a first time driver (if you are younger than 25 this number will be even higher, probably double) and that's without even buying the car, which is also impossible right now because they've exploded in cost. A shitbox from 2007 costs about €3,000-4,000 right now.
Most young people don't have €10,000 to invest in learning to drive.
And I haven't even mentioned road tax, car maintenance, fuel being x4 the cost of USA's etc.
