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0 pointsghaff7y ago0 comments

There are a lot of things you can't do if you can't drive. I was just in Nevada and Death Valley on vacation a few weeks ago. Utterly undoable without either yourself or a companion driving.

I suppose you can just shrug and be OK with pretty much staying in or near cities but that seems to close off a lot of options.

I also couldn't deal with day-to-day things without a car but that's at least somewhat manageable depending upon where you live and work.

ADDED: I'm not a typical Silicon Valley developer to be sure, but I couldn't even have done my first job absent a drivers license. It may be worth asking if you want to be employable outside of certain bubbles where you'll be the weird person who always needs a ride because they can't drive even though they don't have a disability.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

esoterica7y ago· 3 in thread

> It may be worth asking if you want to be employable outside of certain bubbles where you'll be the weird person who always needs a ride because they can't drive even though they don't have a disability.

You say that as if only a tiny minority of jobs will let you get by without a car. Most white collar jobs will not require you to drive anywhere.

ghaffOP7y ago

Leaving aside commuting; we'll assume you and friends/partner are fine with only living, working, and socializing where you can easily get around by public transit, walking, bike, Uber now and then and restricting your choices accordingly.

Every half-way senior engineer I know (and I'm not even talking sales, system engineers/solution architects, product managers, and so forth) routinely travel to customer sites or branch locations that require driving under at least some circumstances.

Uber/Lyft have absolutely helped with some edge cases. I was at a work event just a couple weeks ago where my default in the past would have been to rent a car and I didn't because, while the venue was about an hour drive from the airport, I didn't actually need to drive once I go there.

It is absolutely the expectation at most jobs that you can drive if need be.

kenneth7y ago

I have never once in my career felt like I was held back by not having a car. The only occasion where driving was more convenient was during rare business trips where and we'd simply get a rental car.

If you're a white collar worker in NYC or SF, you're more likely than not not to own a car, or if you do, to use it almost exclusively for personal reasons and not for work reasons.

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esoterica7y ago

> It is absolutely the expectation at most jobs that you can drive if need be.

You're making a broad generalization based on nothing but personal anecdote. In my personal experience, on the other hand, I don't know a single person who has ever needed to drive for work.

Kiro7y ago

If I could choose I would never leave my apartment.

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