[avi550m]

My journey into automobiles started in March 2000, when as a young impressionable teen I saw one of the first copies of Autocar India at the news stand, with a boxy first gen WagonR staring back at me. And since then, it has been a journey of two decades into cars, bikes, and motorsports.

It seemed to be a perfect set of circumstances which brought me further into contact with the automobile. There where three primary things in the early 2000s which brought me deeper into the automobile fold, firstly, the proliferation of car magazines (Autocar, Overdrive, BS Motoring, Auto India etc.). Then came the first few fast and furious movies, which with the Need for Speed Games (Underground, Most Wanted, Carbon) made me fall in love with the tuner culture and opened my eyes to what cars can become. And last but most importantly was Top Gear (the Clarkson, Hammond, May one) which I downloaded over the oh-so-slow internet and stored on CDs and DVDs. I still have over 20 seasons of Top Gear lying in a cupboard.

I love cars, and my family and friends would often ask me for recommendations when choosing one, and I would go on about pickup, ride quality, measuring boot space, refinement, seat comfort etc. In 2010 I got my driving license, even though the process of learning to drive was scary for me. Coordinating gear shifts with acceleration and braking seemed alien, and even lots of practice with the home 800 made me a serviceable but not quite confident driver. And that was when traffic in Bangalore will still not the horror show it is now.

So when it came to choosing my first car I wanted something easy to drive, which is why I instantly fell in love with the Maruti A-Star, driving it on an empty field for the test drive. It was exactly like the video games, just focus on steering, acceleration and braking. Also in 2012, unlike today, there was a lack of automatics in the country and the A-Star was the cheapest option available. Funny enough, it was not a car I even considered when doing my research.

And so began my journey into driving, I loved looking after my car, washing it myself every week, and went on a couple of Team-Bhp meets as well. But Bangalore’s traffic was not improving, and taking the car to office was a headache , something I never looked forward to. Somehow, traffic and the unpredictability in the way people drove always raised my stress levels and caused my anxiety (I am a highly sensitive person), and it all came to a head one day when a two-wheeler came out from a side road and ripped my bumper off. Luckily they did not fall down, but that experience shook me.

It was also the time (2015 or so), when Ola and Uber started coming to the forth, and I started using them and public transportation more and more to commute. It was far less hassling, even with the crowded buses.

And with the start of the Metro route and me moving onto a more freelancing, work-from-home situation, I found myself developing a system of using buses, the metro and travelling during off-peak hours to work out cheaper, and far less stressful than navigating Bangalore’s increasingly maniacal traffic. In fact, the few times I had to drive, I hated it. The amount of vehicles these days seems to have increased ten-fold from a decade ago, and the amount of road discipline has dropped by a similar amount.

The only few drives I liked any more are towards the airport or Nandi Hills, nice open roads with relatively fewer people and the ability to just relax and not think too much.

Which brings me to the question in the title, can one call oneself and enthusiast when he doesn’t enjoy driving anymore. I still love cars, watch the Grand Tour, Chris Harris on Cars and Harry’s Garage on YouTube. I talk to like minded-friends about whether Mercedes current dominance is really worse than Ferrari’s or Red Bulls title runs. I have moved onto Forza Horizon, F1 2019 and Dirt Rally on the PC and love driving virtually, but I can’t seem to find the desire to drive any more than absolutely necessary these days. Even going to Team-Bhp meets seems intimidating, when everyone is in the C and D segment Sedans and SUV’s, with the occasional BMW thrown in, while I still keep my old trusty A-Star with me.

I don’t know, maybe I need to find certain things to love about driving again, or just go out there for weekend runs. I would love to know if I am the only person in this boat, or whether there are others out there for me.

Moderators, kindly move this thread to the appropriate section in case it does not fit here.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by avi550m

But Bangalore’s traffic was not improving, and taking the car to office was a headache , something I never looked forward to....
The only few drives I liked any more are towards the airport or Nandi Hills, nice open roads with relatively fewer people and the ability to just relax and not think too much.
.....
Which brings me to the question in the title, can one call oneself and enthusiast when he doesn’t enjoy driving anymore.

I'm with you 100% of the way there sir. I'm even more so because I spent 2013-2017 in the US; I came back with a pronounced hatred of our road conditions. I hate driving here in India. Period.

Even before the pandemic, I and my family have preferred staying home. We don't go to any movies or malls. We finish most of our big purchases online. Traffic is the sole reason for our spartan lifestyle. We prefer to avoid our idiotic road conditions and fellow road users.

But I still rack up many miles on my 2 cars simply by seeking isolated locations and driving there to get away from it all. That's it.

PS: I hated driving before I went to the US too, don't get me wrong. I would get into fights with idiots who would honk at me for stopping my car at a red light back in 2012 too.

[84.monsoon]

Love for cars and love for driving are not exactly the same. I have many relatives who love cars, have nice collections of superb cars and wax eloquent on the technicalities of various engines but never drive. They get their chauffeurs to it for them. On the other hand, I have friends who have basic cars like the Celerio or an old Swift but look forward to their commute every single day and drive their cars to the ends of the country. They just love the experience of driving, the movement, going to new places, being in control of something much larger than themselves etc.

So I feel you can be a car enthusiast and not necessarily love driving. For example, I am an airplane enthusiast as well, have collections of flight seat maps, books about various aircraft and faithfully maintain a diary of every single one of the hundreds of flight I have taken and the aircraft types I have traveled in, but have never flown a plane and have no desire to do so either.

[RavSam]

Driving in extreme traffic is not driving but commuting. It's just like walking in traffic but with air conditioning and music to keep you sane.

I love travelling, but does that mean I love to travel to extremely popular and crowded places? NO! Does that make me less of a travel enthusiast? NO!

Same goes with your profession of passion. One loves it when it's sane and all is well. Overloaded, repetitive, short and unrealistic deadline may make you want to hate it.

[bigron]

Why not!

It is one of those passions that is severely impacted by its surrounding conditions.

A nice long trip on the Golden Quadrilateral in a decent car ( no need to be in a v8/10 or even a v6 for that matter ) will definitely put a smile on the face.
A faster car is of course going to give more thrills but even a nice family sedan doing a steady 110/120 kmph will calm you and let you indulge and enjoy your passion.

On the other hand, if you going to Point A to B in rush hour traffic moving at a pace of 15 feet per 30 mins, no car will redeem the agony. You are still the same enthusiast but the conditions are less than ideal.

The unfortunate part is, in todays day and age, more time is spent in the latter than the former.

[ruzbehxyz]

Exactly opposite for a friend.
I have a friend who loves driving to the core, especially on car expeditions in India, but is not a car enthusiast. You give him any car and he would love driving around. He currently owns a Wagon R CNG and uses a driver to drive around the city only for work. On other occasions, he loves driving around.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by ruzbehxyz

I have a friend who loves driving to the core, especially on car expeditions in India, but is not a car enthusiast. You give him any car and he would love driving around. He currently owns a Wagon R CNG and uses a driver to drive around the city only for work. On other occasions, he loves driving around.

Your friend is a bigger car enthusiast than somebody who drools at Lambos and watches F1 races, but prefers to fly to a holiday destination.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by avi550m

traffic and the unpredictability in the way people drove always raised my stress levels

Originally Posted by locusjag

Traffic is the sole reason for our spartan lifestyle.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

Love for cars and love for driving are not exactly the same

Originally Posted by RavSam

Overloaded, repetitive, short and unrealistic deadline may make you want to hate it.

Originally Posted by bigron

Point A to B in rush hour traffic moving at a pace of 15 feet per 30 mins, no car will redeem the agony

I love cars, know everything about them, but my love for driving was brought to nought because of bludgeoning traffic.

The first serious highway drive I did was a short 160km up and 160 down drive in 2002, and the next was 15 years later - in 2017.

Two reasons for me keeping away from driving

1. knowing the kind of morons we have on the roads

2. knowing what can go wrong with cars and fearing/assuming that the worst can happen

I've slowly overcome no.2 by keeping the cars ship shape and leaving the rest to God.

Defensive driving to a large extent can take care of issues with respect to no.1; I learnt this by observing how SETC and GSRTC drivers drive.

[avisidhu]

I think RavSam summed it up perfectly: we should not confuse commuting with driving.

Which begets the question: can someone who does not enjoy even driving be termed an enthusiast? Let's not be too enamoured with the term enthusiast and think of this as an active vs passive hobby. (Btw, a vast majority of us in the 'enthusiast community' do not actually drive as much we would like to think we do so don't be too harsh on yourself)

And there's certainly nothing wrong with having a passive hobby, which would be the equivalent of reading or watching movies. A lot of sensible advice however does suggest investing in active hobbies (learning a language, new skills, driving/travelling?). But, to each his own!

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by avi550m

I have moved onto Forza Horizon, F1 2019 and Dirt Rally on the PC and love driving virtually, but I can’t seem to find the desire to drive any more than absolutely necessary these days.

You needn't drive to be an enthusiast. And Bangalore traffic can bring out such emotions for sure. If you would still like to step out for a drive, might I recommend going out early morning(before 6:30 AM) or late night (after 10:30PM) and even Bangalore city roads become a joy to drive on.

Even going to Team-Bhp meets seems intimidating, when everyone is in the C and D segment Sedans and SUV’s, with the occasional BMW thrown in, while I still keep my old trusty A-Star with me.

It is the passion that matters and not the instrument.

On this very forum, you will find travelogues of BHPians doing 1000+ km long trips on their Nano, 800, Thar, Skoda, BMW or even vintage cars and so on. All rides are capable. If you like yours, you are in a healthy marriage - enjoy each others company without peeking over your shoulder.

[commonman]

This question itself has the answer. Looking at the age, we can get to the real reason of not driving. Let us go through an example. In our teens, we are enchanted by the automobiles, we love them, we care for them and we want to drive them. When the third decade of life starts, we start using it for office / home purpose. The owning of cars and bikes become a reality at this point. We explore, travel a lot too during this time. By the 4th decade in life, we will start having responsibilities, which makes us less available for driving. We still love our cars or bikes, but our priorities have changed. We may have drivers for our vehicles, which make us less involved with our vehicles.

In short, our position in life can make us not a driver, or may not be even a rider, but cannot lose interest in vehicles. I had seen people in 70's asking and discussing about bikes and cars with lot of enthusiasm. Roads, circumstances, family, all can make a person not having interest in driving, but a petrol head will never change.

Mod Note - Please use space after a punctuation, not before it. Thanks.

[jetsetgo08]

Originally Posted by avi550m

The only few drives I liked any more are towards the airport or Nandi Hills, nice open roads with relatively fewer people and the ability to just relax and not think too much.

Which brings me to the question in the title, can one call oneself and enthusiast when he doesn’t enjoy driving anymore.

These 2 points should summarize. As others have rightly concluded, you don't like to drive in your daily commutes but you still like driving. The word enthusiast could bring in a larger spectrum of people with a variety of interests in automobiles and personally I would regard the word 'enthusiast' more as a self proclamation. Those who claim are the judges themselves.

If you still want to drive, I would suggest trying out an AT if your A-Star is an MT. It may temporarily satiate the feeling of not being able to drive on a daily basis.

Originally Posted by ashis89

On this very forum, you will find travelogues of BHPians doing 1000+ km long trips on their Nano, 800, Thar, Skoda, BMW or even vintage cars and so on. All rides are capable. If you like yours, you are in a healthy marriage - enjoy each others company without peeking over your shoulder.

Trust me, occasional infidelity in these sort of marriages is very much worth it.

[haisaikat]

Originally Posted by avi550m

Which brings me to the question in the title, can one call oneself and enthusiast when he doesn’t enjoy driving anymore.

It is like being in love with the partner but keeping things platonic only . Although you can continue to be enthusiast on automobiles even if you do not enjoy driving but then again why miss the fun in driving only because of some uncontrolled city traffic. I recall developing excellent radio and podcast listening habit during peak traffic while driving to office, even office calls and calls to relatives and friends for which I did not earlier have time while being back at home.

There are so many destinations in and around Bangalore (Cool Drives within 150 km from Bangalore) which make excellent weekend getaways.

Please do not get me wrong but I believe your problem is being too much into car and racing games which has given you the feeling of achieving the pleasure of driving under ideal conditions meaning no real life consequences and not in nerve testing traffic.

I strongly suggest that you relook at picking up driving using a real world simulators as suggested in below links

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...-school-7.html (Opinions about Maruti's Driving School :)

https://www.quora.com/Where-do-I-fin...s-in-Bangalore

And thereafter you need to find a good driving buddy (driver from training school) who can teach you driving in traffic well enough in your car during your commutes in traffic. Trust me this is how I learnt driving and it worked, in spite of having DVDs full of UK driving classes that never became useful, something similar to you. Of course end of the day its your choice but I believe you can easily overcome this situation all by yourself.

[avi550m]

Originally Posted by haisaikat

Please do not get me wrong but I believe your problem is being too much into car and racing games which has given you the feeling of achieving the pleasure of driving under ideal conditions meaning no real life consequences and not in nerve testing traffic.

No offence taken. I do enjoy driving virtually since it does give me a stress free experience compared to driving in real life. My other issue is that I am quite sensitive to sounds, sights and other external stimuli since childhood. So the chaotic nature of traffic really does frazzle my nerves. I have tried meditation and calming music when driving to help reduce the stress which comes, especially when getting back at the end of a long day.

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by locusjag

I'm with you 100% of the way there sir. I'm even more so because I spent 2013-2017 in the US; I came back with a pronounced hatred of our road conditions. I hate driving here in India. Period.

Understandable, especially in big cities. I hate driving into Bangalore - it never fails to be a miserable slow experience but in smaller towns with sparse traffic, it gets far better.