To really hate driving. Please tell me it gets better!

[Sahkoora]

I passed my test a month ago, second try. I passed but I technically shouldn't have; I hit the kerb during my manoeuvre, though everything else was ok.

I also did my lessons and test in a different town from the one I live in. I moved towns while learning and didn't want to change instructors or start again, so I carried on.

The day I passed I felt reasonably confident to drive by myself, but since then, my confidence has eroded. Driving is terrifying, my parking is crap and there are so many things that lessons never covered. Now I don't feel confident to do anything but the smallest of journeys, absolutely not why I wanted to drive.

DH has come out with me a few times to help and advise me, but he's never helped a learner before and he doesn't really like it. He's always wincing and getting nervous when I do things that I thought were minor, he thinks I use the handbrake too much and don't turn corners properly which is making me drift about in the lane, but my instructor never mentioned any of this to me. It could be that I am driving in my own car now, which is bigger and wider and considerably more of an old banger than my instructor's.

I feel like I'm not really safe to drive the DC, I keep telling myself I must be, I wouldn't have passed my test otherwise and my instructor let me drive with her DC in the car and thinks I'm a good driver.

Part of the problem is that the town I live in is so much bigger than the one I learned in, the roundabouts are huge and complicated compared and I would just like to drive them with someone else a few times first so I know what lanes to be in etc, but DH thinks I should just get on with it by myself.

I can't drive without my heart pounding at the moment, I just hate it and would do anything to get out of it. I don't want to be like this, I learned to drive to give myself some freedom and I feel a bit like I wasted my money.

Please tell me it gets better! Any tips to build my confidence?

Oh yes, about roundabouts - I used to really hate them (particularly as I am not great with my left and right). The only way to get better is to practise. My real problem was not so much the ones in towns as you have to approach them slowly anyway - it was sorting out slowing down for the ones on dual carriageways etc without slowing down too much and pissing everyone else off. I know I shouldn't have worried too much about that, but I did! After driving several times on busier, faster roads, I am much happier about roundabouts, and I didn't do anything special, I just practised.

The suggestion of going to a supermarket car park at a slow time and practising reversing into bays is a really good one and I am going to try it. My problems with left and right are multiplied in reverse gear!

It will get much much better, but stop trying to get support from your DH, he is not cut out for it. Flinching etc is utterly unhelpful.

Take the car out on your own in the day or at night and practise parking. It gets so much easier when you practise the hell out of it without panicking. You can go as slowly as you like and just park again, and again, and again. When you feel better about parking you will feel better about going anywhere.

Don't necessarily take it on board if someone bibs you. The road is full of impatient arseholes who bib for no reason other than that they themselves set off 10 minutes later than they should have. If you are trying to turn out onto a main road, for instance, consciously breathe, look, take your time, and ignore everyone behind you, giving your full attention to where you are going.

Soon it will be effortless. Not that soon - but soon.

to the person who can only park by reversing into the bay - that's the right way to do it. Far less chance of hitting something or someone if you come out forward.

I hated driving after I first passed. Avoided it as much as possible, didn't have a car or make any effort to drive for years.

The things that worked for me were:

1. Changing to an automatic. I'm dyspraxic, and not having to coordinate clutch and gears meant I had one less thing to worry about and could concentrate on hazard perception / road sense.
2. Learning a couple of routes to key places (e.g. home to work, home to shops) and sticking to these for a little while. As I became more confident and it became less stressful in general, I was able to expand my 'repertoire' of routes.
3. Visualisation. Might sound a bit 'woo' but it worked for me. When I knew I was going to have to drive, I spent a few minutes picturing the route, in great detail, and imagining everything going perfectly - e.g. approaching each roundabout calmly, being in the right lane, navigating it smoothly etc.

It took months rather than weeks but I am a confident driver now. I will happily drive in any town, on any motorway, take any route anywhere. I've driven the length and breadth of the country and also abroad. Sometimes I look back on that time of nervous terror and marvel that it was the same person.