Employers discriminating against people who don't drive?

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My former workplace was 1-2 hours from home, each way, depending on traffic and the weather conditions.

In heavy snow it sometimes took over 3 hours to get there.

I was legally restricted from moving closer toward work, because of my exh.

The first day at my current job, the HR director asked me if I had an easy time finding parking. When I told her I rode the bus, she acted surprised. Not in a judgmental way though; it's more like she realized "Oh right, taking the bus is an option too"

I know public transportation riders have a reputation of being late. I'm rarely late, however (and when I am late, it's never more than 15 minutes).

Sometimes it takes me up to 2 hours to get home. But that's another story.

I know what you mean about not being viewed as a "real man."

I don't drive (nor do I know anything about cars), never married, no kids, would never accept a fistfight, don't hunt, don't fish, don't know the first thing about home repair, I make a low income, I weigh less than the average woman, etc

Everything I've listed above gets me viewed as "not a real man" by a sizable chunk of the population.

______________________

In my previous jobs, it appeared to me that employees that came late tended to drive cars more often than take public transportation.

However, maybe 90% of employees drove and only 80% of latecomers drove

Not a representative sample

Not a controlled experiment

But almost all the jobs I applied for only minimum wage

That is not enough cash to afford rent, utilities, and board and a car

Don't employees with cars, all things equal (which they are not) have to work more hours or jobs, to pay for their cars, than employees without cars?

And isn't it inconvenient to schedule two jobs together? And doesn't working two jobs make people more exhausted than just working one job (all things equal)?

I've noticed tardy employees tend to be drivers too. I think drivers get in the habit of not leaving the house until the last minute (Not only for work; for other obligations too). Because they know they can hop in a car and get there relatively easily.

By not leaving until the last minute, however, they run the risk of tardiness due to traffic, detours, etc

I know bus passengers can get impacted by traffic/detours too. But here's the difference: Bus passengers tend to be (on average) early to work. For example, imagine your job starts at 7:30 am. There's a bus that drops you off by your workplace at 7:27. There's also a bus that drops you off at 7:12. Chances are you'll get in the habit of taking the 7:12 bus (as the 7:27 bus is cutting it too close for comfort). Which means, even if something goes wrong with the 7:12 bus, you'll simply end up being on time (as opposed to early), or (worst case scenario) you might be slightly late.

It's true a lot of jobs don't pay enough to afford a car plus living expenses. I've worked numerous low-paying jobs. The general pattern I've noticed is: Employees with cars tend to either live with parents or a higher-earning spouse. That's how they afford the car.

You're right; scheduling becomes a major issue when it comes to working 2 jobs.

My place of work got rid of the scheme years ago. It was good and at the time didn't cost much as most lived close to work.

When I get my first apartment, I'm going to try and make sure it's close enough
so I can walk to and from work easily, regardless of weather conditions.

For me, the commute is about 45 minutes each.

I LIKE driving.. I just don't like how much it costs.

Insurance with maximum discount is $132.31/mo.

Gas is $100/tank or so, tank or so a week so like $400ish/mo, $500 or so if I drive more/also put premium in my motorcycle etc - and that's just commuting around and going to the beach, not even any weekend day trips or anything. ($2.029/L rn, so approx $8cdn/us gallon for regular)

Then there's oil changes, tires, maintenance - which my car just ticked over 125,000kms and is likely due for it's first real service. Motorcycle is leaking shaft drive fluid so that's going to eat some money to have towed and repaired.

And if I work somewhere where I have to pay for parking it's anywhere from $15-25/day.

Even with no car payment it's easily $700-800/mo to drive, add in parking and it could top $1300.. add in a car payment when it comes time to replace a car and boom it's about $2k/mo to drive around in a very regular car, not even a luxury car, suv, or truck. Probably tack about another $1000/mo on for payments and fuel in one of those.

It's VERY EXPENSIVE to drive.. kinda nuts, really. But I do enjoy the freedom of being able to hop in my car or on my bike and just go wherever I want whenever I want w/o having to ride multiple busses and trains for 3-4 hours each way. That's how crappy public transportation is in the more distant suburbs where I live. It takes 3-4 hours each way to go to the beach that takes me 40 minutes to drive home from at night with no traffic. That's why everyone in this part of the region that has a drivers licence and can possibly afford to drive, does. Very few take the bus by choice - usually forced by financial circumstances. Downtown is a different story - people can get around via busses that come every 10 minutes Or car-share programs and don't Need to own a car or pay for a parking spot. Suburban commuters, not so much.

That much per month for insurance? Mine costs just over 200 pounds per year.

Amen.

I moved from Northern NY (Adirondacks) to Nevada in 2009. I drove out here in my rusty 1986 Honda Civic Si, which failed only miles from my destination in Northern California. I later fixed that car by being given a whole identical car, and swapping the defunct part on my car for the not-quite-defunct one from the donor car.
I fulfilled a childhood dream in 2010 by buying a clean one-ton 4WD pickup truck with a huge "big-block" gasoline V8 engine, and towed the repaired Civic back to NY in late 2010, and sold both the Civic and the truck in NY.

Returning to Nevada, I did not again own a car of my own until early 2019, instead driving with my girlfriend in her car(s) in the interim, and only very rarely borrowing her car for a solitary journey for purposes other than something that she needed/wanted.

After moving to the very tiny town we now live in in late 2017, I started to feel the need to again take on the burden of owning and maintaining my own wheels. My Dad gave me his rusty 2003 VW Jetta TDI wagon in January 2019, and he and I drove it from Northern NY to here in NV then, with a new-to-me 10-foot aluminum flatbed trailer in tow, and cargo that I picked up in the Northeast US via uShip.com, and for which I was paid $1,700 to haul to the West Coast.
That Jetta was a great car, but the rust was making me not want to spend any significant time and money maintaining a doomed structure, so I sold it in early 2020, having already purchased its replacement a few months prior.

My "new" vehicle is a $950 1997 Isuzu Hombre mini-pickup (nearly identical to a Chevy S10), which I still drive. I am fortunate in that I don't need to drive MUCH, now that we don't have a house in Reno to go back and forth to, so my fuel expenses are low, and insurance costs me about $180 every six months. I have been able to maintain and repair the truck as needed (so far) with the very low-cost parts that are readily available, and have done all of the work on my own, in my driveway, or in a friend's shop right here in town.

Obviously, I have the advantage of living in a place and in life circumstances that allow quite low vehicle expenses, so not everyone will be able to duplicate my experiences in this realm.

I'd be hard-pressed to give up the semi-autonomy that owning a vehicle has again given me, and will try to maintain my status as an "owner/driver/mechanic" for as long as my limited finances allow. I even ended up with 80 gallons of "free" gasoline that came with my "house", so have been driving with almost no fuel costs for over six months.

Darron

That’s at maximum discount with reasonable coverages and basic $1M liability. It’d be more if I added more coverages, and a lot more with no discount.

New drivers with no discount pay something nuts like $400-500/mo now.

And people with claims against their insurance who lose discount levels and then have another accident can end up with surcharges multiplying their premiums.


We only have one choice here for car insurance, a provincial government monopoly for the last 40-50+ years. There is no shopping around except for additional coverages if you need them on a fancy car, but all basic policies have to be paid to the tax man - and then the govt steals $B’s from the insurance co to balance the books elsewhere.

Edit: gas went up again a few days ago. It’s back to about $120/tank

My job is about a block away from a commuter rail station, so many of my coworkers take the train to and from work, as do some of the managers. I drive because when gas prices are good, it's not much of a difference in me taking the train as I live closer to the freeway than the local train station. I actually checked, and sometimes, the price of gas is cheaper than the monthly rail pass.

Adoyle

When trying to compare the cost of driving versus public transportation, you have to take into account insurance and car repairs, not just gas

Indeed. And either a car payment Or the eventual replacement cost of a vehicle.

Even with no car payment it's approximately $10k/year to drive my small car. More if I have to pay for parking. Another maybe $2k/year to ride my motorcycle.. more if you count some big ticket recent repairs, but they should last for years and not incur such large expenses annually.. but never know, maybe it will cost a few grand a year due to repairs.

And that's for a 2013 Dodge Dart and 1993 BMW K75, nothing super new or luxurious or expensive.. costs WAY MORE to fuel up a truck or SUV.. and then there's the upfront or payment costs. Driving is obscenely expensive.. but, without it my life would be so smol! I'd be fitter and trimmer walking and cycling a lot, but I wouldn't be able to take on side jobs and haul a trunk/car/ski box full of tools and materials to a site to make $$, and I wouldn't be able to get to the beach in a little over 40 minutes as public transit takes 3-4 hours each way and includes a 4-7km walk home at the end of the night. It's BRUTAL to try to get around without a vehicle. Can only maybe run one errand at a time and only buy what groceries you can fit in a backpack etc. Everything here in the suburbs is Extremely car-centric, most people only take the bus when they can't possibly afford to drive and no one wants to give up almost every waking hour outside of work to ride on busses if they don't Have To.

Maybe someday I'll buy a Cybertruck and have no more gas bill. But in the meantime, it's more realistic that if I do end up moving that I might buy another old motorcycle or two just to have different style bikes for different types of riding. + you can't really lose any money on an old collector Honda or something that costs $35/mo for insurance. Don't use it much? Sell it and get your money and garage space back.

What kind of jobs were they? Are you in a city with good transport or in a rural area with infrequent buses?

Here, not having a local state driver's license is a way for employers to discriminate against immigrants (aka 'foreigners' or 'non-whiteys') without actually seeming to do so.

So you'll see a lot of job ads which mention the need for a local license regardless of whether there's any driving as part of it.