How to deal with driving anxiety

[MaggieTheCat]

Okay. I have a driver's license. I think I'm a pretty decent driver. But I have some serious anxiety attached to driving a car.

I grew up in a pretty small town (less than 10,000 people) and my parents were really strict about when and where I could drive. Despite the fact that I got my license almost as soon as I turned 16, they wouldn't let me drive anywhere on my own until I was almost 21. One of them had to always be with me, and they were REALLY uptight when they were in the car with me. They made me EXTREMELY nervous and I think that is part of the reason why I'm still so nervous about driving today.

I have virtually no "big city" driving experience and I now live in San Antonio. When I first moved here to be with my husband, I did a little bit of driving, with him in the car. On maybe my third or fourth time driving in the city, I got onto a big highway and got in an accident. It was not a serious accident, no one was hurt. But I banged up my husband's car pretty bad and I was considered at fault, and I haven't driven since. That was around, or a bit over 2 years ago.

We only have one vehicle, so usually we just go places together. But I work from home, and my husband works in an office, and I'd really like to be able to do things like grocery shopping during the week since I have the time, instead of us both going shopping on the weekend. This, of course, would involve me dropping him off at work in the morning, running errands during the day, and picking him up from work in the evening.

I can get pretty much everywhere I need to go without getting on any of the big highways in the city, thankfully. His work is pretty close to our house (about a 5 mile drive straight down one of the bigger roads in the city, but not the highway) and we have a couple of grocery stores that would be pretty easy to get to.

I want to do this...but I'm afraid I'm going to be an absolute wreck once I try. I'm shaking and crying just typing this now. Has anyone else every experienced anything like this?

[Treasure]

the only thing i can tell you is that driving is just like any other skill - you have to practice to get good ....

that being said - start off small - instead of him driving to the grocery store one weekend - you do it, he drives home; the next weekend - you drive to and from... etc etc... build up...
to drive w/o hubby in car, try getting a friend to lead or follow you(with hubbs riding with them), so that if you freak out, you can pull over, and hubbs can take over, or get back in the car with you, and calm you down so you can complete the drive.... it may take some time... and you will eventually need to get back on the highway - again start small - get on then get off at the next exit (you usually only miss 1 or 2 lights on surface streets doing this) then, 2 exits, etc etc, so that you can get comfortable with the speeds and merging, and other drivers; another thing to do is to practice later a night, when the highway is less in use... go to sections or entire highways that are known for being "empty" after 10pm on a Wed. Night...

As i was told when I first started learning - You're never gonna get comfortable unless you do it...

additionally - if it turns out you can't function behind the wheel - see your Dr - you may need an anti-anxiety; or it may be one of those things where you just don't drive...

[ArcticChicken]

You could start off even smaller than that, take the car around the block once or twice with him in the car, then with him waiting at home.

[Seshat]

Develop car handling skills before you need to develop road courtesy skills.

In other words, drive in the quietest places you can find. Have your husband drive you to an empty car park (one that's open, of course), or the farthest section of a supermarket car park at a quiet time.

Practice your car handling. Get comfortable with the vehicle, take your time. Get confident handling the car at supermarket car park speeds.

Then go to quiet streets at quiet times. Suburban streets. Travel slowly, gradually picking up towards the speed limit as you get comfortable.

In the suburban streets you'll occasionally have to work on 'road courtesy skills': that's what my father (a driving instructor) calls the skills of working with other drivers such that everyone shares the road safely.

There's a single most important rule of road courtesy: be predictable.

In other words, your indicator lights are there for a reason. Your brake light is there for a reason.

If you suddenly realise you should be turning at this exit and you're in the wrong lane, and it's too late to reasonably get across to the exit lane, just keep going, turn off at the next exit, and read your map. (or use your GPS)
It's much, much safer to take the extra time turning around and going back than to be unpredictable!


The two other rules of driving are "have patience" and "if in doubt, park and wait it out". The latter applies to everything from bad weather to heavy traffic.


You may need refresher classes, or defensive driving classes. If you do, go ahead and get them. Much safer to have them under your belt than not!

[SuperRTL]

Well, about 2 days after I got my drivers license, my dad blind-folded me and drove me to a place in the city I wasn't completely familiar with, gave me the keys and told me he'd see me at house. It took me 2 hours to get home (it'd take me maybe 20 minutes today) but I did it. I took streets that were mostly quiet and pulled over multiple times to consult my street atlas.

When I still had my permit, my dad took me to a mall parking lot really early in the morning after it had snowed when it was almost completely empty and had me start pulling donuts in my car. By the time I had to drive on my own in the snow, I knew what it felt like and how to handle slick conditions.

Mostly, what I did was practice practice practice. Specifically, I practiced things that made me nervous. I also did it without my mom in the car. To this day she drives me crazy when I'm driving and mostly insists on driving when we have to go anywhere together.

So, my advice, practice practice practice. Start with your husband in the car if that will make you more comfortable but you could even start with just driving up and down the street in front of your house with him on the sidewalk cheering you every time you drive by. My parents did that the first time I got behind the wheel. I went maybe 5 mph but I was doing it "on my own" with the support of the people closest to me.

[tropicsgoddess]

I started driving late since I was scared to drive (I knew people that died in car accidents during my teenage years). Start off small like your neighborhood and drive with hubby then progress some more to things like going to the bank, grocery store, driving by yourself and such and then the final step would be to drive on the highway. With city driving, it's a little tough at first but after a bit you get used to it. Just take your time, pace yourself and you'll do fine.

[wolfie]

Since your last "wheel time" was 2 years ago, I'd suggest contacting a GOOD local driving school to see if they have a "refresher" course available.

[Teysa]

I went for over five years without getting behind the wheel of a car. During that time, I would either take the bus or my SO would drive me. When I got placed at a store last year that was a little more out of the way, he decided it was time for me to start driving again. He took me to a nearby empty parking lot and had me practice for a while. He then had me drive to a nearby grocery store.

After that, he had me drive to work with him in the car. I found that most things came back to me fairly quickly. Now, I drive everywhere. The freedom to just go when I want to without having to ask for a ride or depend on the bus schedule is nice.

Just so you know, I was petrified at first. I had to remind myself several times that I could do this. I'm sure you can too.

[blas]

I feel for ya.

I've been wanting to go to Mall of America for so long, but I cannot drive in giant metropolitan areas. The few times Dad has taken us to the airport in Minneapolis, I've gotten anxiety just being a passenger. Damn, those huge cities have some crazy ass people driving.

I grew up in a city of less than 10,000 people, upgraded to a slightly bigger city of about 12,000 (that was hard enough actually, that city introduced me to one way streets and whatnot). Now I live in a city of about 60,000, and I've found it's actually not too bad, but I've been lucky as most of this city is long stretches of main highways/roads with higher speeds that you can take to get to downtown or other sides of town.

[Cat]

All great advice. I have nothing to add, except to say I understand. I hate driving and get anxious over it...so I wanted to send kindred thoughts.

[AccountingDrone]

When I still had my permit, my dad took me to a mall parking lot really early in the morning after it had snowed when it was almost completely empty and had me start pulling donuts in my car. By the time I had to drive on my own in the snow, I knew what it felt like and how to handle slick conditions.

Boy that takes me back =) Growing up in western NY with a birthday in late October, I got all of my driving education in snowy conditions. I love doing donuts in a snowy parking lot

Since your last "wheel time" was 2 years ago, I'd suggest contacting a GOOD local driving school to see if they have a "refresher" course available.

Very good advice!

[BookstoreEscapee]

I also think the best place to start would be a driving school and have someone who is not emotionally invested in you do the teaching (unlike your parents...I was way more nervous driving with my mom and her imaginary brake pedal than I ever was with the professional instructor - who actually had a real brake pedal on his side of the car!) In my state, when I learned to drive, 6 hours of driving instruction was required to get your permit. After that you had to be with someone who had their license at least 3 years to drive with a permit. (Restrictions are different now; there's a more graduated system in place).

I used to get anxiety/panic attacks (still do sometimes but I've mostly learned to short-circuit them) and driving made me especially nervous, mostly because I was afraid I would freak out and get in an accident. That was part of the reason I forced myself to learn to talk myself out of the panic. Part of how I did it was not allowing myself to talk myself out of driving without a really good reason. There were a couple times I had to call my parents to come get me because I didn't feel safe driving, but I didn't want to let it turn into a full-on fear of driving. I did it by myself, but if you need more help a few sessions with a counselor might be helpful, too.

[Barracuda]

All sound advice. I used to be scared to drive myself (whenever I feel something in life is out of control, my subconscious reacts with nightmares about driving and not being in control of the car.) I found it went away with time, experience, and familiarity with the area I am driving in (I still can get somewhat freaked out when going someplace I have never been before.) Only thing I can add is try short practice trips. If you are worried about traffic, do it early in the morning or late in the evening so you don't have to worry as much about other cars. If you condition yourself to it, you should manage to make the tension you associate with driving ease.