5 Things I've Learned As An Adult With No Driver's License
When discussing traditional milestones of American adulthood -- marriage, babies, investing in something beyond an extensive sneaker collection -- learning to drive rarely enters the conversation. This is because most people accomplish that feat before their brains are fully formed. That's how easy it is, I guess -- but I wouldn't know.
I've survived almost 30 years without a driver's license. There are a number of reasons I've abstained so long: I was raised in Brooklyn, where my impression of cars was that it took two hours to park them and they served as an additional way to get robbed. When I moved to the suburbs in my teens, I knew my parents couldn't afford to buy me a car or even add me to their insurance, and I preferred to spend my meager earnings on necessities such as pot and Taco Bell. Why squander my menial paychecks on self-sufficiency when I could binge on mystery meat and sweet ganj instead?
Accepting my carless future as fate, I became something of a charity case -- relying on friends, family, and the occasional stranger to get around. I knew this wasn't sustainable, so I made plans to move back to Brooklyn after college. There, the MTA would enable me to feign competence. (This worked for eight years, until the thought of inhaling one more stranger's coffee breath sent me screaming toward California). But, in hindsight, all of the "practical" excuses I had invented were a veil for what was really happening: I was (am) terrified of driving.
This guy might as well be handing me a basket filled with live grenades and hungry cobras.
Is it pathetic to admit that I don't trust myself to operate a car? That I can't envision myself merging onto a highway or hitting the brakes in time without causing a Final Destination chain reaction? Well, color me pathetic, because these are things I'm afraid of. And this fear -- which I've managed to harbor for more than 15 years -- has impacted not just my mobility, but my entire life. Mostly in unforeseeable ways, such as ...
My Self-Worth Fluctuates Based On Where I Live
New York was the perfect place for a non-driver to hide in plain sight. You could even boost your self-esteem by becoming one of those condescending assholes who's fluent in public transportation and judges everyone who isn't. "Did you hear that noob ask if the A was running express? Who doesn't know that at 11 p.m. every other Wednesday, the A transforms into a commemorative plaque of Kanye's VMA speech?" (Answer: probably a noob who knows how to parallel park.)
Is transportation without the constant scent of fresh hobo pee even transportation at all?
All of that false bravado would vanish as soon as I ventured outside of the city: to visit friends in the suburbs, while on vacation, or anytime the words "road trip" came up. During these jaunts away from comfort, I would regress into a hapless backseat child, whose schedule was dictated by whoever my adoptive driving parents happened to be that week. These temporary bursts of humility made me long for New York, where I was no less outwardly incompetent than anyone else. Whenever one of these trips came to an end, I returned home with a sense of calm, knowing I would soon regain control over my life.
Then, I moved to California. I live in a walkable neighborhood and rarely need to leave it, so I don't feel too hindered by my inability to drive. But, this is a car-centric city, and I can no longer hide the fact that I'm terrified of something that's a basic fact of life for my friends. Being confronted with this gaping hole in my skill set after years of avoidance has reacquainted me with my high school insecurities. No matter how much I've accomplished, I can't help but compare myself to everyone who manages to get on the road everyday -- 16 year olds and octogenarians alike.
This whippersnapper has totally forgotten what it's like to walk uphill in the snow, both ways.
What do they have that I don't? Aside from a driver's license, a semblance of confidence that would really come in handy sometimes. Because ...
It's Horrifying To Be Left Alone In A Car That Isn't Legally Parked
"The car should be fine here," they said. "Just move it up a few inches if the cops come." Like, do you understand that you're entrusting me with property worth thousands of dollars? That I have the potential to destroy in all of two seconds? Illegally?
If people didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't have made the
brake and gas pedals look like twinsies.
When my mom attempted to teach 15-year-old me how to drive, the first thing I did was panic on a corner turn, hit the gas instead of the brake, and drive her Toyota Corolla onto the next-door lawn, stopping inches away from the house. (No one lived there at the time, but still.) I haven't been behind the wheel since I was 18, during a fleeting New Permit High when I thought I might be capable of driving without killing anyone. I know that inching up or moving to a parking spot is second nature for drivers, but both are terrifying to me. And when I'm terrified, I panic. And when I panic, I ... well, I drive onto people's lawns.
Hollywood (and certain plants) made this seem way more fun than it actually is.
I know this makes me the worst person to have in your car and maybe a bad friend in general. Believe me, I think about it a lot. Because after a while ...
I Worry That My Driving Friends Kinda Hate Me
OK, they don't hate me. But, I know I make their lives slightly more annoying, even if I shell out gas money, say thank you, and remain cognizant of the solid they're doing me every time their car is involved.
The thing is, I have great friends who don't treat me like a leech (at least, not since high school). It's possible they feel fine doing the odd pick-up now and then. But, this is a favor I am unable to repay. I can repay their generosity in other ways, but I'm not the friend you call when your car breaks down or when you need a ride home from surgery.
Unless you enjoyed surgery so much, you want to go back and do it again.
And as someone who's benefited from specific, car-related favors, I do sometimes feel like a garbage person for not counting "helpful in cases of emergency" among my friendship offerings. This says more about me than it does the grievances -- real or imagined -- of my friends. It's actually one of the more motivating arguments to take some lessons and get a license. But then, I get protective over my not driving because ...
Everyone Wants To Solve "The Problem"
Despite being licenseless in Los Angeles, I've found ways to remain quasi-self sufficient. I walk most places, work from home, and call a Lyft when necessary. This is to say that, excepting a few friends, no one is harmed by my not driving. If you want to be an optimist about it, maybe I'm even slowing the destruction of our planet!
As long as I don't crack open a Glowstache in celebration.
But, no matter how OK I am with my current arrangement, someone is always there to carsplain the alternatives to me. Some people suggest biking in the interim. (Side note: Maybe the only thing that scares me more than driving is biking next to people who are driving.) Some launch an investigation as to when I plan on getting a license, because I live in LA now and can't possibly survive without one. (These are usually people I don't know and who will never be affected by my licensed status or lack thereof.)
Nightmare On Rodeo Drive.
I'm aware of the benefits of driving and how my life would improve if I overcame my fears. But, these inquisitions make me feel like I have a nagging mother-in-law who wants to be a grandmother before she dies. And for what? I'm not hurting anyone. No one should be made uncomfortable by the fact that I don't have a license. It's not a value judgement on people who do. It's not as if I don't watch TV or eat animals. Learning to drive is something I need to do on my own time and isn't an attack on the American Way. I'm not avoiding it to be a contrarian -- I'm avoiding it because I need the inner resources (and the financial resources) to address whatever psychological issues have kept me off the road this long. That, and ...
Not Driving Becomes A Part Of Your Identity
Sometimes, I imagine an alternate universe me, cruising down the 101 like I'm in the opening credits of The O.C. I know the songs I want to play at full volume and the friends I would want riding shotgun. I can see this version of myself, and the prospect of meeting her in the future excites me.
But, when you've spent your whole life not driving, it becomes part of who you are. It informs your decisions and lifestyle. It sharpens certain skills and dulls others. I know exactly how much to purchase at the grocery store without my arms breaking, and I can converse with just about any stranger. I'll probably never need a gym membership again. I'll admit, I sometimes get immense pleasure from the idea that maybe I'll never, ever learn to drive. It's rare in America! A triumph in its own right. And after 29 years, it seems like a more accessible goal than the alternative.
I would rather spend money on gas-making burritos than gas-guzzling Toyotas.
Of course, accessible goals are not the stuff of dreams. It would be more meaningful to unpack the trust issues I have with myself and work toward getting on the road. It would be more exciting to pick up a friend from the airport. And, of course, it'd be more valuable to never hear the words, "So, when are you getting your license?" again.
Imagine how harsh the world would be if you needed a license to access the Internet? Adam Tod Brown thinks you should have to. Read why in 5 Everyday Activities That Should Require a License and, if you don't have a license, don't feel too bad. Driving is a hellscape populated by deranged ticket-dispensing police officers. See the worst of it in 6 Completely Legal Ways The Cops Can Screw You .
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see what the worst drivers always do in How To Drive Like An Asshole, and watch other videos you won't see on the site!
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4 Mysterious Deaths With Unsatisfying 'Official' Explanations
I don't always go in for conspiracy theories. I'm about 90% sure that the moon is real, and I never wear a tinfoil hat (since tinfoil actually conducts communication signals, rather than blocking them). But then there are those times when someone dies and it seems pretty damn certain that there's something going on beyond the reported explanation. Take, for instance, how ...
Charles Manson's Lawyer Died During His Trial, And Nobody Was Charged
When Charles Manson was charged for facilitating all those murders his "family" committed in 1969, his lawyer was a guy named Ronald Hughes. Hughes had never tried a case before, and it had reportedly taken him four attempts to pass the bar exam. He was known as the "hippie lawyer," because he knew a lot of hippies (he knew people in the Manson family before they were ever charged) and looked like a hippie, blond hair long in the back but balding on top. Soon after joining the case, he shifted from representing Manson to representing another defendant, Leslie Van Houten, and his planned strategy involved blaming Manson for everything. Manson, as you can imagine, was not pleased.
When the prosecution rested its case, Hughes rested as well. Van Houten and others yelled that they wanted to testify, but Hughes refused, suspecting Manson had convinced them to accept full responsibility. The judge called for a ten-day recess, and the last thing Manson said to Hughes was " I don't want to see you in the courtroom again." He got his wish.
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Hughes embarked on a camping trip -- a pretty bizarre thing to do when he was supposed to be drafting his first ever closing argument as a trial lawyer -- and supposedly got caught in a flash flood. The last anyone saw of him, he wasn't in the exact spot where the flooding was, but it seemed possible that he'd died out there, so they abandoned the search. The judge assigned a new lawyer to close the defense's case.
Manson was sentenced to death, as was Van Houten (both sentences would be commuted when the nation temporarily halted all executions). She later got a retrial, because her lawyer dying should probably have resulted in a mistrial the first time. Hughes' body eventually turned up in a gorge. By this point, declaring a cause of death was impossible. Maybe it was in fact a flood. Or maybe it was the Manson family, dozens of whom remained free (and some of whom would go on to commit more murders).
During the filming of the Oscar-nominated documentary Manson, one of the Manson Girls claimed the family had in fact killed 35-40 people, and that " Hughes was the first of the retaliatory murders." After a prosecutor publicized this claim in a book, another family member got in touch with him to affirm that yeah, that was a family kill, no question about it. That's not exactly proof -- people like this love to take credit for every unsolved murder in the vicinity -- but as explanations go, it seems less weird than "Happened to die in a freak unrelated accident immediately after enraging a murder cult."
Related: 5 New (And Strangely Plausible) Conspiracy Theories
A Future Vice President's Son Was Evidently Eaten By Cannibals
Michael Rockefeller was one of the heirs to the Rockefeller fortune and son of Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York at the time and later Gerald Ford's vice president. In 1961, Michael and an anthropologist were sailing off the coast of New Guinea. Then their boat overturned, and the pair drifted for two days on a raft that occasionally capsized before Michael figured he'd strike out for the shore. This turned out to be a bad idea, as the raft would be rescued the very next day, the famous heir nowhere to be found. A major search effort followed, but the body never turned up. Michael was officially declared dead three years later, with drowning the presumed cause. It appears the actual cause was much more gruesome.
On one hand, it certainly seems likely that someone who tried to swim 12 miles, already in a state of exhaustion, would never make it to dry land. But reporters then went to New Guinea and talked to locals, the Asmat, on the off chance that Rockefeller really had turned up. The Asmat not only said that a man had in fact made it ashore, but they were able to describe him. They were even able to describe what underwear he'd been wearing, despite having no familiarity with American-style undergarments. They had seen the underwear, they said, before killing and eating him.
They had done this, they said, in retaliation for the killings of several of their own by the Dutch government, who had jurisdiction over the island. Asked, the Asmat produced their victim's bones (they used tibias as fishing spears) along with the underwear and some glasses, all carefully preserved. The journalists of course informed Dutch authorities, but their investigation into the matter stalled. It didn't help that New Guinea had formed its own government just a few months earlier in preparation for the Netherlands getting the hell out of there the following year.
Other reporters have visited that village over the years and heard enough to believe that Rockefeller really was eaten, and not by sharks. The Smithsonian sent a guy over there in 2014 and found it was apparently common knowledge there that they'd killed Rockefeller, and they'd just hoped the reporter wouldn't bring the matter up. Knowing the USA's reputation for responding to international incidents by introducing "democracy" at the rate of 600 rounds per minute, it's a little weird that the government kind of took this in stride. Though it was probably best for everyone involved.
Related: 5 Conspiracy Theories We're Ashamed To Admit Make Sense
A Girl Disappeared, And A Creepy Dude Swore Bigfoot Did It
43-year-old Russell Welch took 16-year-old Theresa Ann Bier camping with him, and their ages alone might be foreshadowing that this was going to end horribly. The year was 1987, the campsite was in the forests of California's Sierra County, and when the trip was done, Welch returned to the city without Theresa. Questioned, he said she'd run away from him. Then, perhaps realizing he'd admitted to holding a minor against her will, he changed his story and said that Bigfoot had taken her.
He stuck to this story. He was a Bigfoot enthusiast, he said, and the two had been searching for the cryptid during the trip. Authorities, weirdly enough, did not believe him, and arrested him immediately. They charged him with child abduction, but they really wanted to charge him with murder, as few people believed Theresa was still alive and well out there. A murder trial wouldn't get very far, however, considering they hadn't found a body and had no proof she was dead at all.
In fact, without the body providing evidence that Welch had harmed Theresa in some way, there seemed a good chance their suspect might beat the kidnapping charge as well. The district attorney offered Welch a reduced one-year sentence for abduction if he agreed to leave open the possibility of being tried for murder if a body turned up. Welch turned the deal down. So the county released him, hoping to arrest him again if they ever did find Theresa's body ... which they never did, leaving her case still open today. So either this guy went free despite being guilty, or Bigfoot really did take Theresa and himself managed to escape justice. Or maybe Bigfoot and Welch were in on it together. There are no non-terrible options, is my point.
Related: Crazy Conspiracy Theories That Sane People Believe Right Now
The Scientist Who Came Up With Nuclear Winter Disappeared At A Nuclear Conference
The '80s, I'm told, were terrifying times to be alive, with the threat of nuclear Armageddon ruining most otherwise-enjoyable activities. Experts made it clear that even if you escaped the actual direct strikes that would surely land sooner or later, you would have to face global freezing and famine as the smoke from planetwide fires blocked out the sun.
The Russian scientist who put together a mathematical model for nuclear winter was named Vladimir Alexandrov. He made this model using a computer in Colorado, having been granted temporary access, making him the only Soviet scientist to ever receive this honor. He was also, as you can imagine, a controversial figure. Not everyone liked hearing that a nuclear war actually couldn't be won.
In March 1985, Alexandrov was in Madrid for a conference for "Nuclear Free Zones Local Authorities." Alexandrov himself didn't represent any kind of nuclear zone, but he did know a whole lot about why all zones should be nuclear-free, maybe, and he had a speech ready about his specialty, nuclear winter. But things got weird as the conference went on. Alexandrov suddenly started drinking heavily, and when he was escorted to the Soviet embassy at one point, he resisted and tried to escape... according to some sources, while others say he did nothing of the kind. Then, when Soviet officials, who had been following him, came to collect him from his hotel, they found his room empty. He's not been seen since.
Some say that the Soviets spirited him away and executed him, suspecting he was planning to defect to the West. And yet the Soviets asked the Madrid police to search for him, while also asking them to keep the investigation quiet. Another theory is that Alexandrov did in fact defect to the West, right under the Soviets' red noses. His own colleagues suspected this, which was why they didn't raise the alarm about his disappearance initially. But decades after the Soviet Union's fall, the man still has never surfaced, and those colleagues ended up regretting their inaction.
What really makes the whole story suspicious is that it's entirely possible that "nuclear winter" isn't a real thing at all. Some believe the USSR spread the theory widely as a means to foster anti-nuclear sentiment in America. So Alexandrov might have been both a Soviet plant who used the U.S.'s own technology to undermine its morale with lies, and a defector about to blow the lid on a secret disinformation campaign. Everyone had a reason to want him, and to want him dead. Or maybe he was just mugged and his body was dumped in a sewer.
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