Whilst flitting through the pages of the 'New Review' of last weeks 'Mail on Sunday', I came across an article in which the 'Punk Poet Laureate,' John Cooper Clarke, admitted in passing to his interviewer that he wished he could drive.
I breathed an immediate sigh of relief at this revelation.
The main reason for this apparent surge of warm 'knowingness' and sympathy that I experienced was that, at the 'tender' age of forty-nine, I am still not able to drive myself.
Of course, Mr Clarke's reasons for not driving may be utterly different to mine, but I could not help but feel a tinge of empathy and more than a little understanding for this man who I had never, or never would, meet.
Added to this apparent warm rush of feeling was also tinged a ray of hope, not because it reinforced the fact that I was not alone but because, against all the odds, John Clarke had, apparently, made a success of his life.
I have always known, of course, that I am not the only who does not drive, although sometimes it does seem to feel that way.
I suspect that, despite the popularity of the motor car the number of people who do not drive still forms a sizeable minority - but a minority we are, nevertheless - at least in the developed world.
It is just that whenever someone well known or famous emerges from their driverless closet and admits to their own lack of driving skill, it immediately makes my own predicament seem much less worse, awful as that may sound to some people.
One other non-driver I have always known about is a certain Mr Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London and leader of the G.
L.
C.
However, I am not sure whether he drives or not nowadays.
I remember reading an article that stated that Ken had at some point been taking driving lessons.
However, I cannot say how well he did at them, and I do not really care, particularly since the introduction of his much maligned London Congestion Charge.
The moment Ken came out with his notorious phrase, 'I hate cars.
If I ever get any powers again, I'd ban the lot.
' I have found it since then well nigh impossible to take him seriously on any matters relating to private means of transport, let along public ones.
That aside, in any case as far as I am concerned, when someone hates something or someone else with that kind of heated passion, it can only mean that they wish to be or do the very thing that they claim to hate.
Yet this is a sentiment and feeling that many non-drivers may themselves be familiar with when it comes to the subject of cars.
At the end of the day, we have a love-hate relationship with the motor car.
The point is, cars are part of our modern world, essential to so much in our everyday lives - and they are not going to go away.
If those who do not drive were really honest about it, I think most of them would admit that at some point in their lives, they wished they could have got behind a wheel themselves.
Some of us like to kid ourselves that we don't like or need cars, but we do need them, whether we have to sometimes jump in a taxi or hitch a crafty lift from a friend or relative.
We know that the car is comfortable, cosy and convenient.
It imparts independence and a feeling of self-worth, never more so if your job depends upon it.
In fact, in some cases, it is practically impossible to apply for some jobs unless you can drive, never mind the fact it can make or break any chances you might have of receiving promotion at work.
Oh, and let's not forget the fact that the lives of the great driving majority do not have to revolve around those dastardly unreliable bus timetables.
How much I would love to be rid of those things and take control of my own working day when needing to get from A to B.
Fine, so I admit - we have had it drummed into us about all of the bad things associated with car driving.
Yet people still continue to use their cars, and for good reason.
After all, it is still the most convenient method of transport to date, still the best way of ferrying the children safely to school in the morning, and still a pretty good investment if you want to get someone you know or love taken to the hospital quickly in an emergency.
In a nutshell, cars are just plain convenient for so many reasons: and non-drivers had better get used to it.
There are also the social pressures to drive.
My friends, family and colleagues, including my partner, have all wanted me to drive.
In fact the pressure to take to the road is so great, no despotic government would need to pass a law compelling everyone to take driving lessons; that would be totally unnecessary.
The comments you can receive from others are quite enough - thank you.
Let me furnish the reader with a few gems of my own: 'Oh what a pity you don't drive.
You had a potential client there, but she lives right out in the sticks and you'll never get to her now.
' 'Is there something wrong with your feet then? I have never come across this before, a strong able-bodied lady like you that can't drive?' 'Sorry, I can't give you the job dear.
You really do need to know how to drive a car.
This is the problem isn't it? Goodbye.
' 'Well, I think if I had to take today's driving test, I probably wouldn't be driving either, just like you.
I'd never pass.
' 'You can't drive love? Ah, never mind, you might live longer.
' And so it goes on.
It's enough to make you want to drive a car into someone's brick wall.
Yet to be brutally frank, we live in a society built upon mobility and whether we like to admit it or not, being able to drive is an important skill.
Without it life is restricted.
Becoming a driver would change my life for the better, and the people who have pressured me should know; after all, are they not all drivers themselves? On top of that I would no longer feel like the 'outsider,' the lifelong passenger dependent on the charity of my friends and relatives to ferry me around, Also, perhaps I would no longer be viewed with disdain.
Also, it seems more 'acceptable' to some people if a driverless individual has some kind of medical problem that automatically disqualifies them from driving.
At least that way they can sometimes receive some sympathetic nods in their direction.
But for me that is not the case.
If I just say it is nerves or lack of self-confidence or that I simply do not like driving, then it really doesn't cut much ice with people who are mobile, or have been so for many years.
Anyway, one thing I would never look for is sympathy.
I don't need it.
I would rather prove to all those who did not think I could drive that they are in fact, just plain wrong in their judgement.
Of course, if I ever manage to dispense with the L plates and throw them merrily in the face of my antagonists, I could at last claim myself as a member of the 'Great Driving Club' and no longer one of life's so-called 'losers,' my own driverless-ness weighing on me like a colossal burden.
Or, come to that, be looked upon as something akin to a worn-out traveller from the 'Pilgrims' Progress.
' And those who want me to drive do have my best interests at heart, don't they?.
Well, that is what I like to think anyway.
But there is always another side.
'Oh how I wish she could drive.
I don't fancy having to ferry her around everywhere.
After all, I am not a chauffeur and anyway I pay enough petrol just for my own backside.
' Admittedly though, I do agree with the people who say I ought to get mobile.
The fact is I have always wanted to drive, if only I could get the hang of operating the dastardly two-wheeled machine.
The desire remains, incredibly as far as I am concerned, despite the whiplash injuries we learners can sometimes receive to our self-pride along the way.
Which brings me to my very first driving instructor.
He was a young man in his early twenties, and I was, well, old, as far as he was concerned.
I can remember the first thing he said to me: 'Well your driving ability I would say is about average to below-average I must admit.
I suppose it's your age really.
I happen to have this young woman learner on my books and she's absolutely brilliant at it.
A couple more lessons and she'll be ready for her test.
She's a complete natural you know.
' (As for you dear, well, no comment about that one).
The first thing I wanted to do was turn on the exhaust fumes.
I immediately felt my self-confidence going into reverse gear.
OK, I was in my thirties.
It was my very first driving lesson.
I was terrified and I felt quite sick, even before I had put the key in the ignition and pressed down the clutch pedal.
Here was an instructor who was a little too in-your-face for my liking.
The point is I don't need to be told I am useless, and I hate being compared to someone else, particularly a younger person.
So what if they are a zillion times better than me? Frankly I just don't want to know, and I don't care, thank you very much.
I just want to be told that I can drive if I really want to, despite the inevitable butterflies in my stomach; the sweaty palms; the huge lump in my throat as I feel the engine begin to kick in; the beads of sweat collecting on my forehead as the car begins to shudder and take off down the road.
The car is a beast I have never really felt fully able to tame or be wholly in control of.
Admittedly, being behind a wheel spooks me.
I have never found it easy or natural.
Then there is the general 'road rage' and tirades of foul language you can get from other, more 'qualified' drivers.
OK guys, I know I am a nuisance! I sometimes get the gears all muddled up and the clutch pedal all wrong and end up cutting out at the traffic lights.
But what about the drivers who get impatient with me? Were they not themselves learner drivers once who struggled with the gears, the clutch and the three-point turns? I bet they did struggle when they first learned to drive, most of them anyway.
Unfortunately it seems that some drivers have short memories about their own faltering first steps behind the wheel of a car.
The way some of them vent their anger at you, often with words that would make Gordon Ramsay blush with embarrassment, you would think that their ability to drive was God-given, that they had been driving forever and never been near an A.
D.
I or driving test centre in their lives.
Yet driving is a skill that must be acquired, and which gets better with practice.
It is a lifelong process of learning, and no driver can ever be perfect, however perfect they think they are.
So despite the discouragement that learner drivers can suffer from less patient road users, those who do not drive for one reason or another, are so often viewed in a negative light.
Sadly it is far from an ideal world for the non-mobile and more often than not, we are shamed into silence about our lack of driving skills.
We have become the silent minority in a society built upon mobility, forced to hang our heads in shame, afraid to come out of our closets for fear of ridicule, or worse.
But here I am after all these years, still watching the world rush by in their cars as I stand on the sidewalk, shivering at the bus stop in the rain, eagerly reading the timetable - if it hasn't been vandalised - and glancing forlornly at my watch, and hoping the bus will turn up soon - if it turns up at all.
My own body also makes me aware of the passing of time.
There are the inevitable health issues as one grows older as well.
I tell myself that I probably won't be able to walk around so much forever either.
I can feel changes going on in my own body that I did not envisage just a few years previously.
The encroaching aches and pains, the feeling that my own ability to walk for miles is on borrowed time.
I reassure myself that learning to drive becomes more important as time passes, rather than less so.
Therefore, driving is as much for the older person as it is for the younger, especially when one comes to look at it from a general health point of view.
Add to that the fact that, stastistically, we do tend to make safer drivers than the younger generation, anyway.
I glance over towards the distant Buckinghamshire hills, sullen but beautiful in the Autumn twilight.
This is definitely walkers' country, I tell myself.
But you need a car to get to those hills, nevertheless.
I reassure myself that I am indeed fortunate to be living here in this part of England, but one half of me still wants to be back in London where the public transport is at least plentiful and I can kid myself, and kid others hopefully, that that is the reason I don't bother with a car.
In my heart of hearts, I would like to be there on the road, tucked away in my own nicely heated car and away from the foul English weather.
I have heard they have toughened up on both the theory and the driving tests since I last took them.
Lucky for me, I reassure myself rather smugly.
If I ever manage to pass a British driving test, I shall be a better driver than all those others who took their tests thirty or more years ago.
Yet I can understand why the test has been made harder.
Each year, over a thousand people are killed on our roads.
Many serious injuries and fatalities are caused by new, inexperienced drivers.
The stastitics are not comforting.
I shall, without doubt once again don the L plates and dutifully take to the road with yet another instructor, hopefully one who this time is serious about getting me to driving test standard.
But after so many lessons and so much giving up when the going got tough, will I make it over the hump next time around? If I did, my mother would certainly be proud of me, even though she passed away many years ago.
I can imagine her saying to me, 'You see, I said you could do it.
You should have more confidence in yourself girl.
' (How right you are mother!) So when it is time for me to to try my skills at driving for the umpteenth time, I shall think of Mr John Cooper Clarke and all the others who never learned; and I'll wish them all the luck that they deserve, should they ever decide to take up driving themselves.
It is, after all, pretty brutal out there on the roads, and no place for the more sensitive among us.
But when I do, once again, take to the great highways amidst the smoke and the traffic fumes - this time I won't be holding my breath.
Susan.