At Columbia, the school that destroyed my mental health but introduced me to a number of my closest friends, you cannot obtain an undergraduate degree without passing a swim test. At least, that was the rule when I was there. The test was, I think, to get from one end of a pool to the other without drowning, and campus lore had it that this was a holdover from the Cold War. In those days, school administrators feared that the bridges and tunnels could fall under attack from the commies, and the men of Columbia would need to be able to swim off the island of Manhattan to freedom. It doesn’t make any sense, but that doesn’t matter. The underlying rationale of the swim test is solid: to be a fully-formed adult, educated via the Core Curriculum that covers the basic pillars of Western literature, philosophy, music, art, history and science, you should also know how to swim, as it may come in useful someday.
I thought of the swim test a few years later when I was directing a movie, specifically a scene that required my lead actress to cook a little something. I guess I could have had her make toast, but I chose frying an egg. She told me she didn’t know how to fry an egg. I showed her and we moved on, but it was crazy to me that an adult wouldn’t know how to fry an egg, a skill you can learn literally just by watching someone else do it once. I’m no chef, but what self-respecting person can’t fry an egg?
I thought of the swim test yet again earlier this year when writing about a scene from Paris Hilton’s doc-series in which she admits to her sister that she has never changed her baby son’s diaper and doesn’t know how. Nicky and the nanny showed her, and Paris did seem a little embarrassed by the admission, but as before, I scratched my head. To be clear, I don’t think it matters at all if the nanny changes every diaper of Hilton’s kids’ lives, but if you know you’re going to be a parent, wouldn’t you at least want to learn how? There are plenty of YouTube tutorials, and what if the nanny gets sick? You’re gonna let your kid sit in the pee? What self-respecting parent can’t change a diaper? Hell, I can change a diaper and I’m one of them childless cat ladies ya hear so much about.
And this is the attitude I get when someone tells me they don’t know how to drive.
(I don’t know if OP was being sarcastic here^^, but I do know that similar sentiments have been shared online in full earnestness. I even once saw a post that went something like, people in New York are liberal because you are forced to interact with diversity on the subway, whereas people in the suburbs don’t, and I wonder if maybe the person who wrote that had been on Earth for about a month)
Before we continue, a couple disclaimers, because this is going to be a rant. First, if you’re one of my friends who doesn’t drive, just stop reading and let’s pretend this never happened. Second, I got my license at twenty and was a menace to the road until I was 25. Mea culpa for scratching cars in parking lots. Cool? Cool.
To me, not knowing how to drive is a little like not knowing how to do a load of laundry: there’s no moral reason you have to have this skill, but it seems, frankly, lazy, to assume there will always be someone else around to do it for you. And yes, everyone in our modern era who doesn’t drive relies on other people to do it for them.
Yes they do.
Yes they do.
“NO! I TAKE THE SUBWAY!” I can hear you screaming at the computer. But are you telling me you take the subway…everywhere? You never take Uber? You’ve never gone to a wedding out of town and gotten a ride from the hotel to the venue? When you need to move, you don’t hire movers? When you’ve got something heavy with you, you don’t hail a cab? Maybe you take cars very infrequently, only when necessary, seeing them as a kind of luxury that you can mostly do without. That’s fair.
But also…really? Be honest. You take ‘em a skosh more than that, don’t you?
I know a number of people in Los Angeles who do not drive. Every single one of them takes Uber on a regular basis and will happily accept a ride home from me if I offer it (which I do without being a bitch about it because I’m nice and like giving people rides). I’m telling you, there is no truly car-free person here, and I don’t think there are many truly car-free people where you live, either.
I realize that cars are a blight upon urban planning and the environment. But…that’s the world we live in, babes. So often, people who can’t drive often frame this lack as a sophisticated, selfless, urbane, eco-friendly choice. Like they’d rather Vespa around Rome or bike around Paris than drive, even though they don’t live in either of those cities. But no one said you have to use your license once you get it. Like swimming, cooking, changing a diaper or doing a load of laundry, I just think everyone should have the ability, even if they don’t care for the activity. It’s the implied holier-than-thou thing that really grinds my gears, pun intended. Non-drivers are not better than other people! They are in fact, in at least this one area, demonstrably worse, because they can’t do something that drivers can!
A reasonable person might point out that laundry, diaper-changing and egg-frying are all skills that can be mastered in a couple of hours, whereas driving and swimming both take money, training and practice, so actually, your thesis is totally wrong, Lizzie, you stupid cow. Again I say, shut up. You know what else you have to learn and practice? Reading and writing, and you learned that as a child. Just because a skill is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t essential, and driving can be essential.
If you’re in an area that’s difficult for an ambulance to access and the person who does the driving gets hurt, what are you going to do? Hope for a helicopter? Every road trip you take for the rest of your life, you’re not gonna pitch in at all? Not to mention the favors you’ll never be able to do. One of my joys in life is picking people up from the Burbank airport because I know just how much easier I’m making their day. If a friend with a new baby lives all the way across town, I don’t need to ask them to meet in the middle. I get in my car, put on a podcast and go to them. These things would not be possible were I not the driver and owner of a car.
A lot of non-drivers are scared. Even though cars are safer than they’ve ever been (except for maybe Teslas), driving is still risky. But I’d argue that’s why we need more smart, level-headed people (like you, dear reader) on the road, not fewer. But if you are scared, at least own up to it. It’s a semi-rational phobia, not a healthy skepticism about your safety and abilities. “Oh, I can’t imagine myself behind the wheel,” you say, as if your hands are too delicate and feelings too deep to handle something as brutish as a motor vehicle. Get over yourself! You’re not Hamlet, learn to drive a fucking car.
Don’t even get me started on bike lanes (they’re a nice idea, a very sweet idea…)
Lizzie
PS - here’s a tiktok that made me laugh, and here’s another one
Honestly, you were way kinder than I would be about this subject. SHUT UP AND DRIVE