<p>Those are all wonderful things to want and work for, but for the purposes of this thread, I was more worried about my daughter finding herself in the car with someone who either drinks or gets attacked by a vampire bat, and she can’t take the wheel.</p>
<p>Well, vampire bats, that would be a real emergency!</p>
<p>I can’t quite see the swimming/driving analogy, but it’s certainly handy to know how to drive. And to change a tire, or a car battery, while you’re at it. But the beauty part of having friends and neighbors is that there’s always someone who can do it for you!</p>
<p>They are not truly analogous. They are just two things that I think people need to know how to do. I’ve not known anyone who was thrown into a car and told to “sink or drive.”</p>
<p>Calmom, Great thread! I also believe that young adults should have a drivers license by the time they graduate college. My nephew, who lives in Manhattan, will graduate this Spring from an ivy league school and does not have a license and his parents do not own a car. His father grew up in suburbia and often rents a car if they need to use one. His mother had a license for just a few years but no longer does. I think not being able to rent a car or get around outside of a city is going to hurt his job prospects but he does not seem concerned - yet. </p>
<p>From what you and others have posted, many people that live in cities do not see that asking other people to drive them places is inconsiderate. Instead, they just figure that’s how it is - if you live in a city and it’s a hassle to get a license, just don’t get one.</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter has had similar problems that another poster mentioned regarding drivers and road trips. My daughter’s car has a stick shift. The number of people that know how to drive a stick is also shrinking so on her last trip home after she graduated from college, she ended up driving the whole way from IL to PA because she couldn’t find a stick-shift-capable driver to share the driving with her.</p>
<p>kathiep – I also drive a standard (stick shift).</p>
<p>When we were shopping for a new car, the salesman on the lot told us that only about 15% of the cars they sell are standards. He himself had gone to a “special driving school” to learn how to drive one – although it was still possible to take lessons on a standard when I got my license at age 28.</p>
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<p>Tipoff to their true state of mind, if they don’t offer gas money. Contrary to my expectations, the people I met who grew up in the big city were quite sheltered and needed more experience at a lot of things. It’s time they grew up.</p>
<p>Back when I was in hs, all Calif. public schools taught driving. Now, post-Prop 13, driver’s ed is expensive and complicated for minors. The parents have to feel that it is important for the kids to get their licenses, otherwise it won’t happen. But since there are very few hoops for adults to jump through, we now have young adults who rush out and get their licenses with inadequate preparation. As usual, Calif. is penny-wise and pound-foolish.</p>
<p>We live in suburbia, several miles and across the freeway from the high school (too far and in winter too dangerous to bike), and bus service is inadequate, so my kids both got their licenses within a week of their 16th birthdays.</p>
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<p>I wonder if she ever goes to the gas station when they are in the car? Perhaps they think of gas as something parents provide, like toilet paper. 
Not uncommon amongst kids who are not experienced drivers.</p>
<p>I think it’s unusual for people to offer gas money on short trips. The problem here is cumulative, of course. I’d suggest that the OP’s D could simply say pleasantly, “I know it probably doesn’t occur to you guys, since you don’t drive, but the cost of chauffeuring everyone around is beginning to add up for me. I’d appreciate it if you would chip in occasionally.”</p>
<p>At the very least they could pay for parking or tolls, if there are such costs.</p>
<p>I have to say that I recall being asked along on a road trip when I was in college and had almost no money. It didn’t occur to me to offer gas money until I heard the driver complaining about how <em>other</em> people did not. They had planned the trip without me, and were going anyway, and I was a last minute addition. I would have refused the invitation if I had realized the gas money expectation in advance, since I had already become an expert on what you could buy to eat on $0.30 per day. :)</p>
<p>I’m sorry to say that, as far as I know, neither of my kids know how to drive a stick shift. However, from my own experience, it was a skill that was relatively easy to pick up the skill (certainly far less complicated than figuring out the array of buttons on a typical car stereo… why don’t they standardize those things?)</p>