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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to find it a little bit pathetic when grown women say they won't drive long distances

670 replies

emkana · 30/08/2010 21:20

of more than 30 (!) miles because they are scared of the driving and navigating.

Is it really that hard, am I missing something here?

OP posts:
chitchat07 · 30/08/2010 22:43

emkana - I tried them, but he doesn't like them and gets so agitated and tangled up that it ends up even worse! DS1 was fine with them.

mmmperuna · 30/08/2010 22:53

I used to drive several hundred miles a week for work and would think nothing of it.

Since having the DC and not doing it I feel daunted by the idea of driving on motorways / at night / in bad weather. Its simply a case of being out of practise for me but having had a very nasty experience stuck overnight in snow when pg I do avoid driving in the snow.

DH always drives whenever we go anywhere as he gets car sick as a passenger - I'm happy with that as it means I can have a drink

mitochondria · 30/08/2010 22:53

I'm a silly woman.

I learnt to drive on the Isle of Wight. There are no motorways there. Then I went to uni, in a city, didn't have a car. Started to drive again more recently - we are 25 miles from the nearest motorway.

I have never driven on one. I don't want to. If I need to go long distance I get the train, or husband drives.

Why is it strange to be worried about being crashed into by some speeding nutcase at 90mph? I think that's a fairly reasonable fear.

Not much good at navigating either to be honest - SatNav isn't much help when you don't know your left from your right.

So yes, I'm pathetic. Pfft.

To make it even worse, I can't ride a bike either.

minxofmancunia · 30/08/2010 22:54

YANBU also equates with women refusing to drive anywhere they don't know and refusing to drive on motorways.

The first drove on a motorway the day after I passed my test, I had a panic attack on the scary bridge near the trafford centre scared a lorry would mow me down but I carried on doing it. now I go over that bridge and don't even realise i've done it.

I week after my test i negotiated sheffield city centre on my own, no sat nav. I thought I was going to pass out with nerves at a few sets of lights but now I drive round shef no problem.

A few months after i drove a European hire car through Italy and France again shtting it, really really shtting it.

but IT HAD TO BE DONE, i'm an adult I have my driving licence so therefore I drive, anyplace, anytime and anywhere.

claig · 30/08/2010 22:54

YABU, everyone is different. I don't have any problem driving long distances, but I don't think women who do are pathetic

IngridFletcher · 30/08/2010 22:56

I don't like driving. I passed my test 2 years ago and I am trying to build up experience and overcome my fears but it is hard. My friends who have been driving for 20 years don't understand at all and probably do think it is pathetic. However, they won't walk 20 mins home from the pub in the dark so they obviously have a fucked up notion of risk!

Lynli · 30/08/2010 22:56

I drove to cornwall last week 6hrs without a break as GDD was sleeping.

I probably wouldn't have done this before the invention of a sat. nav.

IMoveTheStars · 30/08/2010 23:08

Lynli, that was bloody stupid. You should have had a break.

weirdbird · 30/08/2010 23:09

I like to drive and will happily drive anywhere, in fact one of my first trips after I passed my test was into central london to help my BF move rented rooms (about 7years ago).

However I do not "enjoy" long distance motorway driving, I can happily do 1-2 hrs worth but any more I actively avoid because I really don't enjoy it, if it isn't motorways I will happily drive much longer, but I find motorways very hard work and will normally have a headache after 2hrs worth.

CoteDAzur · 30/08/2010 23:10

YANBU.

mumto3boys · 30/08/2010 23:13

Clearly I am pathetic. I have been driving for 10 years. In those 10 years I have driven on a motorway once.

And you know what, it's horrendous, I feel stupid and sometimes I have to miss out on things as I cannot make myself do it.

I am not a dangerous driver, there is no actual reason why I couldn't do it or why I would be unsafe to but it is one of those things that has snowballed and got incredibly ridiculous.

But I now am so scared of it, I probably would be unsafe as I don't think I would concentrate properly.

I also don't put petrol in the car and I don't admit to that either. It's a bit of an elephant in the room with me and DH. He will go and do it. It's pathetic and I know but it's also a really horrible way to be. I have put petrol in old cars but for some reason I didn't when we first got this car. And now I irationally worry that I won't be able to open the petrol cap, or that something ridiculous will go wrong. Same as the motorway thing. It's all irrational and doesn't mean I can't drive. I am not incapable of doing these things and if I can get over this stupid anxiety all will be fine.

But all of you smug people laughing at us, please remember it is horrible to feel like this and continually makes us feel incapable and stupid. We also miss out on things etc. We are also not bad drivers who should not be allowed licences. And it doesn't affect you at all, it affects us.

arses · 30/08/2010 23:14

I am 32 and never learned to drive. My parents wouldn't insure me on their car when I was young and still at home - went to uni in Dublin where no student I knew even contemplated driving. The years passed. I went back to uni a second time, ate up all my cash. I got a job a three-hour public transport journey away and it ate up all my time blah blah

I am learning now but I understand why drivers who learn when older are more afraid. It's not necessarily about competence. There's more to lose and the sense of invulnerability that would have protected me from anxious thoughts about driving had I learned at a more appropriate time in my life story has gone.

Will I drive on a motorway? Yeah, I hope so. Got to pass first and that ain't going too well.. but I do understand the fear. I don't think it's about 'feminism' etc. I never realised how important driving was until I started learning, really.. it just didn't interest me.

I guess because I am a silly woman letting the side down.

MadameDefarge · 30/08/2010 23:18

Am I a total sell-out merchant because I don't drive at all?

Since when did driving become a badge of being a really grown up person?

And when did not liking driving long distances become a sign of being totally wet?

Its a big old world out there, and bravery and adultness is not measured in how far we are willing to drive a bloody car, if at all.

claig · 30/08/2010 23:19

Good luck with the test arses. You aren't silly at all, you'll get more confident with practice.

claig · 30/08/2010 23:23

As far as I know, our ex Prime Minister, Gordon Bennett, didn't drive either. Difference is he was pathetic.

Maylee · 30/08/2010 23:24

YABU

Just because you feel comfortable doing something, doesn't mean others also have the same level of confidence.

Driving long distances is not a sign of whether someone is grown up or not.

You must be perfect I'm sure - not afraid or nervous of anything at all right?

DontCallMeBaby · 30/08/2010 23:24

I think it's a shame when anyone, male or female, allows themselves to become rusty in their driving skills before their time would naturally be up - ie before age-related factors force them go give up their licence. My friend had a colleague who had to be pretty much re-taught to drive by her son when she was widowed, as she'd got so much out of the habit. She was in her 50s, I think. My mum is in her 60s now, and is starting to go that way, very nervous about driving anywhere she doesn't know well, considers it a big achievement when she does drive anywhere (so she does still manage it) and hasn't yet driven the ten miles to see me and DD. I don't think she's pathetic, but I think she's making a mistake in letting it happen. She could become quite isolated if anything were to happen to my dad.

GiddyPickle · 30/08/2010 23:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mitochondria · 30/08/2010 23:27

MadameDefarge - spot on.

I am quite surprised at some of the responses on here.

"pathetic, silly, manipulative, second rate citizens"

After all - if I'm not driving on the motorway there's more room for the rest of you, right?

I do put petrol in the car. Oh no, hang on - I don't - it's a diesel car. I live in fear that I'll get it wrong one day and apparently it's an expensive mistake to make.

cat64 · 30/08/2010 23:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

elastamum · 30/08/2010 23:28

YABU (a bit). If you dont drive much it is reasonable to be a bit nervous as cars are potentially very dangerous.

I drive over 20000 miles a year for wk and have a 55 mile commute to work across the peak district. Not much fun in winter and I do see a selection of nasty accidents each year. Most of these are caused by idiots overtaking. I make no apologies for driving a large 4x4 volvo. It was the safest thing I could buy.

Hufsa · 30/08/2010 23:30

YABU. Driving is by far the most dangerous activity that most people engage in on a day to day basis. But for some reason we ignore the huge numbers of deaths and serious injuries that happen every year on the roads and pretend that it's all perfectly safe.

Lucky for you if you're too dim to realise what is at stake when you get behind the wheel. Perhaps some women just have a more realistic sense of the risks involved.

tokyonambu · 30/08/2010 23:30

I've recently finished fifteen years of motorway commuting. I've lost count of the occasions when I've seen cars either stopped on or, even more frightening, reversing up slip roads. Presumably, they were on a roundabout (both the junctions I used regularly were both motorway access and other roads), took the wrong exit, and were so paniced by the idea of driving on a motorway that they thought stopping, or reversing, was their safest course of action. Or they can't navigate and any deviation from their assigned route inspires total panic (in both cases, the next junction is about two miles, so the next result of carrying on to the next junction, going round the roundabout and coming back is five minutes' delay, ten if the traffic's a bit heavy).

This week however took the "stupid nervous driver who shouldn't be on the roads" biscuit. End of the Aston Expressway at Spaghetti Junction, you have a variety of options, including the M6(N) and the M6(S). Someone got into the lane for the M6(S) and, after passing the slip to the M6(N), decided that was where they wanted to go. So they stopped. Indicated left. And turned dead slow across three lanes onto the northbound M6. For fuck's sake: again, it's about ten minutes to go to the next junction and spin round, and instead you attempt to kill everyone around you. It was a total miracle, and a testament to modern brakes, that no-one hit them (I was watching from about 400 yards back, so had plenty of time to stop).

I passed them, or a very similar car, about ten minutes later, stopped on the hard shoulder, speaking to the nice policeman, so presumably someone watching the CCTV had been alert.

If you can't recover from taking the wrong turn without endangering both yourself and everyone else, you really shouldn't be on the roads.

ILoveDonaldDraper · 30/08/2010 23:34

YANBU. It is pathetic.
Am puzzled by posters who can't drive long distances because of "panic attacks". If you are liable to have a panic attack whilst driving, then for the sake of the rest of us on the road please could you not drive at all? You might kill someone. Get some CBT or other treatment for your driving phobia so you can drive properly or don't drive at all.

prettybird · 30/08/2010 23:36

Perhaps you are being a wee bit U - but like you I do find it odd.

DH and I make a point of sharing the driving - and as a result have been able to drive all over Europe, on occasions thorugh the night, becasue when one of us tires, the other one takes over.

I passed my test aged 23 (1st attempt) on a Wednesday. Went out for a test drive of a 2nd car, with friends to help, on the Thursday, picked the car up on Friday and then, first time ever in a car on my own, drove from Harpenden to Machester Shock

Stayed on A roads initially and had written myself detailed instructions. Joined the M6 just before Stoke as I had wanted to avoid Spaghetti Junction through Birmingham because I thought it wold be too complicated Hmm.

Was sooo pleased with myself when I arrived at my friend's place in Manchster. :)

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