BN Hot Topic: Getting Behind the Wheels! Luxury or Neccessity?

There’s a popular Lagos story about a woman who had been abandoned on the 3rd Mainland bridge by her driver. According to the gist, the woman and her driver had gotten into this extensive row on how he was driving like a maniac. Apparently, the driver guy had gotten so tired of madam’s sharp mouth and acerbic tongue that he pulled over to the right lane and got out of the car. It was at that point that wahala started. Madam couldn’t drive. How was she going to get home at night?

At the BN office, everyone has cited this example in the argument that ensued following the visit from my friend who stopped by to say hello. Bimpe just got back from holidaying with her cousins in Indiana so she stopped over to generally catch up on everything that had been going on while she was away. Nothing had changed much that she hadn’t read in the news. And on the personal level, I was glad to report that NEPA had adjusted their supply of power in my area and as such the expenditure on diesel had reduced substantially. Seeing as I didn’t have anything interesting to talk about, she launched into how boring her holiday was. Her cousins lived in the suburbs and there was no way of going about the city without being driven. She complained about how she would never go to a city where there wasn’t efficient public transportation. She said she hated being dependent on people especially when it came to issues of getting up and going.  “Honestly, I don’t know how Busola does it with her refusal to learn how to drive; especially in this Lagos. God forbid!”

Her words struck a chord in my head and I ran upstairs to the office to ask Jennifer this question – “Jen, how important is knowing how to drive to you?”. She replied that knowing how to drive was not absolutely important because she had no problems getting about. I asked if her answer would be the same if she had a car, and she said having a car would probably force her to learn how to drive. We concluded that for her, having thought about it further, her saying that learning how to drive was not important was because she hadn’t been forced to by society.

So, we went further to analyze the issue of men who don’t drive and people who have been so terrorized by their first experience at the wheels that they just wouldn’t try again. It can also be argued that if you’ve lived in a place like London where transportation works perfectly, there is no real and actual need to know how to drive.
Some people have even made it a question of gender. Thus, being of the opinion that men should drive but “women don’t have to.”

“Madam, do you drive?”
“No oh, my husband is there now”

What do you guys think? How important is knowing how to drive to you? Do you think that it’s a luxury or a necessity? Someone said that not owning a car as a defense for not being able to drive was tantamount to saying that one didn’t need to learn how to swim as there’s no regular pool to take dives!

Let’s discuss!

Photo Credit: 2oceansdrive.com