Getting to hate driving as I get older

[FleshLiabilities]

Anyone else experience this?

I'm 52 and I'm finding it more and more challenging to drive any distance at all. Just driven from the Midlands to Scotland and back over Xmas and I really hated it. Weather on the way up was pretty horrible and there were a few times I worried about losing control of the car.

Its not just long distances though, I'm becoming more and more nervous with certain local junctions and nearly caused an accident the other day. I didn't expect to experience this at my age, maybe in my late 60's but not now.

Have you been dealing with anxiety and/or brain fog? HRT can really help.

I mostly don’t drive any more - which has come as a huge surprise as for many years I loved and owned performance cars, raced motorbikes, went rallying etc. I live in London though, so it’s not an issue day to day.

If you do need to keep driving, having almost caused accidents is concerning. Have you considered something like an advanced driving course with a police driving instructor? A couple of friends have taken one and found it really improved their confidence in driving in adverse weather conditions and in defensive driving / better anticipating how other road users might behave - which I think for me is the biggest aspect of my driving reluctance: since becoming a cyclist and seeing at closer hand quite how shitty a lot of drivers are, I just don’t trust other drivers even if I trust myself.

Same. Although I think my car doesn't help as it's not very high and it's slow. Bright LED's from other cars make night driving tricky.

I'm 56 and starting to feel like this. For me it's partly down to very poor visibility at night on some roads near me at night (live in a fairly rural location) but mostly down to how much brighter car headlights seem to be these days. I wear glasses and they're the right prescription for my eyes, but I just find a lot of modern headlights far too dazzling and really struggle sometimes if something is coming towards me giving off a lot of dazzle. I honestly think they're too bright for safety - I can't believe I'm the only person who has this problem.

I'm also nervous around certain types of manoeuvre these days and considering having some top-up driving lessons to try and mitigate it. It's disheartening, I used to love driving and due to a hobby my life would be really tricky if I stopped driving at night, I'd have to more or less give up the hobby too.

@FestiveFruitloop I agree about the dazzling headlights, especially on some of the winding lanes around where I live. I do have glasses for night driving so mostly it's OK.

It also probably doesn't help that my car is 15 years old and a bit of a tank.

I made a conscious decision years ago not to drive, best decision ever.