It is well known that London is a really easy city to get around without a car, thanks to the tube and our world famous black cabs. It can also be an expensive place to own and park a car, especially if you venture into the congestion charge zone regularly. As a result of this, London has a lot of working age people who don’t own a car, and many of them are people who have never actually learned to drive or taken their test. This may not cause any problems with everyday stuff like getting to work, however there are still some really good reasons why even Londoners can benefit from having a driver’s license.
Leaving The City
No matter how great London is, we all like to leave it behind sometimes, whether it’s just to head out into the countryside in the Home Counties for a change, or to go to other parts of the UK for visits or work. There are great transport links by rail to get you to major towns and cities of course, but what then? Sure, if you are going to another big city like Bristol or Manchester you have good local transport options, but if you are trying to get to a client on an obscure industrial estate somewhere outside of Wokingham or your intention is to get away from anything remotely urban in the New Forest, then this won’t be an option. If you go abroad, too, you have far more flexibility and can get more out of your trip if hiring a car is available to you.
Late Nights
While transport late at night in London does exist in the form of the night buses, these are infrequent, a bit confusing, and not what you need when your bed is calling after a long night out, so many of us factor in the cost of a cab when we are budgeting for an evening that is expected to go on later than the tube runs. If you don’t mind staying off the booze, driving can make for a cheaper and safer way to get home, and will of course make you extremely popular with your equally tired friends!
ID
Elsewhere in Europe, people have ID cards that let them do all kinds of things, including cross borders. Because we don’t have those in the UK, and most of us aren’t prepared to carry our passports around at all times for security reasons, this means that those of us who don’t drive usually have no form of proper ID on us. As people who serve or sell age restricted products become more and more concerned about checking it, this can be problematic at the off license, club or even the supermarket from time to time for just about anyone under 40! Even a provisional driver’s license can serve as good photo ID, so this is a benefit you can get even while you are still learning and practicing for your theory test (check this site out for some helpful resources to help you pass your theory, too).
Driving can be useful for all kinds of reasons, and learning can also be a fun challenge, so why not start some lessons and become a new driver?
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