Passed my test at 18, moved to a huge city and didn’t drive for 25 years. Now I need to (moved out of big city) and had 7 or 8 lessons last autumn with a great teacher. All fine and he was confident to let me finish (he asked me if I wanted to stop after lesson four but I wanted to do dual carriageways and a few other things). I actually like driving once on the move but I hate parking!
We have a Honda CRV and the first 30 min drive I did in it along a windy coast road all fine until I got to the destination, a crowded community pool carpark where the only available space was in the back corner of the carpark. just couldn’t park it , got increasingly stressed (actually got BO from sweating! And cried afterwards) and had to get out to let my husband takeover and park it, with a driver of another car waiting v patiently while all this was going on. It really knocked my confidence for six and I’ve now got it into my head I just can’t park etc etc. even just now I went out to the supermarket where there were loads of spaces and still couldn’t park in one go neatly, took about three reverses out and back again.
I find it all so off putting if I know I’ll have to park somewhere eg from Thursday need to take my daughter to a sport where the carpark is always v busy. It’s like I have a mental blank about which way to turn the wheel etc and if anyone gets stuck behind me waiting it makes it 100 times worse.
has anyone been similar and got over this? If so how? Is it just relentless practice? :( To make it worse we have a v tight driveway we have to reverse into made worse by cars parked opposite making the room v tight.