Inability to drive in America - Becoming a disability or not?

[Aori]

For those who can't drive, do you think it is a sort of disability? Particularly for employment, it severely limits your options for a variety of reasons. Most of the country has unreliable, little or no public transit at all.

So many options are cut off when you don't have the ability to drive. What do you folks think? Is it disabling, if you lost your ability to drive would it be detrimental?

[Alvito]

It completely depends on where you live and what sort of life style you live. In almost any city above 100,000 people you shouldn't have many issues. As the population rises the issues shrink.

[Independent voter]

Some people would starve without a car, the grocery store being 90 miles away. Most of these people depend on family or move closer to the city when they get too old to drive.

[Forgettable]

It is now, but soon self driving cars will solve that problem.

[Merkava]

For those who can't drive, do you think it is a sort of disability? Particularly for employment, it severely limits your options for a variety of reasons. Most of the country has unreliable, little or no public transit at all.

So many options are cut off when you don't have the ability to drive. What do you folks think? Is it disabling, if you lost your ability to drive would it be detrimental?

Don't you need a photo ID for that?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

For those who can't drive, do you think it is a sort of disability? Particularly for employment, it severely limits your options for a variety of reasons. Most of the country has unreliable, little or no public transit at all.

So many options are cut off when you don't have the ability to drive. What do you folks think? Is it disabling, if you lost your ability to drive would it be detrimental?

If you have a disability that prevents you from driving...then obviously you have a disability.

If you're just a shit driver...then no...you aren't disabled...you're just a shit driver

[Aori]

If you have a disability that prevents you from driving...then obviously you have a disability.

If you're just a shit driver...then no...you aren't disabled...you're just a shit driver

I have a visual impairment that prevents me from driving or operating heavy machinery legally but it isn't bad enough to be a disability by federal standards.

[Puupi]

Haha. I've never understood people who can't drive unless they have some actual condition that prevents them from doing it.

It's just like walking, how can you not learn it? :|

Life, man, is hard....

[Flatspriest]

The inability to drive is not a disability, unless the person is actually disabled and cannot get a license due to the disability. Otherwise, it just means either the person is to stupid or lazy to learn to drive. BTW, stupidity is NOT a disability and neither is being lazy.

[I Push Buttons]

I can't drive a car without hand controls and currently I can't afford a car and I especially can't afford a car with permanent hand controls.

I am entirely reliant on riding with someone else downtown to work. If their situation were to change and they could no longer take me, I would probably have to quit my job because I have no other means of getting downtown, the bus system doesn't even almost come up this far.

I also missed out on a pretty good job opportunity after I graduated because I had no means of getting transportation in the city where the job was. That city's disability shuttle subscription service was booked solid and took two months for claims to be processed, not that I could apply for it anyways because you needed a residence in the city to apply and I wasn't going to sign a six month lease on an apartment before I knew I could actually get to work. And the normal buses, which were accessible, only allowed so many wheelchairs on at once (liability reasons, only so many as could be hooked in)... The job was on a military base that only allowed certain buses on a certain points in the day, and when I called them they refused to give out information about whether there would be enough handicap spaces for me to get there that way as well. This was all back before Uber was as big as it is now.

TL;DR: Not having transportation because of disability is terribad.

Housing is a whole other debacle.

Really wish I could just rent some shit tier apartment and ride a bike to work, but that just isn't an option.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I have a visual impairment that prevents me from driving or operating heavy machinery legally but it isn't bad enough to be a disability by federal standards.

In a case like that, where the only impact your disability appears to have on your life is being unable to drive a car, I don't think it should be considered a disability by federal standards. Lots of people can't/don't drive.

[Puupi]

I can't drive a car without hand controls and currently I can't afford a car and I especially can't afford a car with permanent hand controls.

That's your real problem in the issue.

[I Push Buttons]

That's your real problem in the issue.

Well the disability is the problem... If I weren't disabled I could easily buy some old beat up car for like two thousand dollars... But permanent hand controls can cost thousands of dollars depending on the car, so it wouldn't make much sense to put thousands of dollars worth of permanent modifications into a 30 year old car on the brink of death... And I can't use portable hand controls very well, not well enough that it would be safe to drive with.