To be petrified driving on motorways

[mollyfolk]

Anyone else scared of driving on motorways? I'm driving years but mostly within 20km of where I live. I avoid motorways or long distances as much as possible. I have to make a 3 hour journey now on Monday, mostly motorway, and I am already feeling sick about it.

I do breathing exercises to stay calm when driving like this. Has anyone overcome a phobia like this?

God, the other day some impatient twat overtook me when I was indicating to turn, with the turning lane starting only about 15 metres ahead, while a car was coming towards us in the other lane and was far too close. That twat narrowly missed a crash to save 30 seconds.

@RaraRachael have the LA not looked at addressing that? Are there signs reminding people to drive on the left? Are there signs to make clear the road is moving into a dual carriageway?

@Natsku I occasionally experience that on the bendy rural road I just mentioned. It’s a 60 road which is not a safe speed at a number of points. One bend is 90 degrees for example, and there’s a couple of blind summits. At night I tend to drive between 40 and 50, as do others, but occasionally some twat invariably in a luxury car will be in such a hurry to get home that they’ll overtake at high speed when it clearly isn’t safe to do so. I’ve seen them overtake two cars at a time and have near-misses with oncoming traffic. A few weeks ago I came to a stop behind two ambulances attending a crash at a bend, with two cars flipped. Fortunately the people involved seemed to be ok.

They’d rather risk killing themselves and innocent people for the sake of saving a few minutes tops. These are the people who shouldn’t be driving and if I had my way they’d never drive again.

@GenAvocadoOnToast I think it's up to the Scottish government and since they got into cahoots with the Greens, they have kept pushing back the date for dualling the whole road. It's probably about 2030 by now. If it was in the central belt I'm sure something would have been done about it. They keep saying they're not investing in roads as they want us to use public transport which is fine if you're well served by it - not having one train every 2 hours and a bus once an hour like we have.

Don't know about the road signs as I never use that road.

I have to say poor driving around here isn’t luxury cars at all. Mostly young men in fairly modest cars but they drive too fast for the roads. We have narrow lanes with passing places with a speed limit of 60. It’s a rare Range Rover that’s caused a problem. Far more likely a Vauxhall Corsa.

There are roads all over the country that go from dual to single carriageway. It’s standard. No driver should be surprised at this and there are always signs and road markings. Even us tourists have this type of road in our home areas!

I have to say it's big fat cars like range rovers that are more likely to drive up your arse, impatient to over take. But maybe they are brain surgeons on an urgent mission to save a life.

Oh many of the drivers of these cars certainly think they own the road and are terribly important.

@GenAvocadoOnToast That sounds like quite a scary road, and pretty similar to the road I drive to work except that my road at least lowers the speed limit at the worst points (though everyone else seems to ignore that) - lots of sharp turns and its so hilly that you can't see far ahead even when the road is straight. Saw a car flipped over the other day but the road was slippery that day so more likely they went down the hill a bit too fast and slid off the road, even at the limit its too fast when its slippery. I almost crashed myself when I came to the top of a hill in the faster section of the road and there was a car broken down in the middle of the lane just in front of me, managed to brake just in time. The driver hadn't placed the warning triangle down the road which they're supposed to do.

No it bloody isn't! Doing 50 mph on a motorway isn't safe!

Well yes. I am important! You are lucky if you don’t get younger drivers zooming around but just have a Rangy up your backside.

I understand how you feel. I hate motorways and feel more comfortable staying very local. Yes it's limiting but it suits me.

After 25+ years of NOT driving at all due to absolute terror, I had refresher lessons for about 8 months last year and have been driving on my own for about 6 months now. I was terrified when my instructor suggested a couple of motorway lessons but she kept insisting that it is much easier than urban town driving - far fewer hazards; everyone travelling in same direction; better condition of roads, etc. I thought she was barmy but once I tried it a few times, I realised she was right!

I was really scared of joining the motorway but lo and behold, people WILL let you join and then you basically cruise along happily until your satnav tells you to leave. Had to do my first 2 hour solo motorway drive a few weeks ago and amazed myself by actually enjoying it! I do find driving my local built-up urban area much harder: pedestrians walking out where they please, cyclists, people opening car doors without looking, delivery vans parked where they shouldn’t be, etc, etc. Much easier on the motorway!

@Fountofwisdom well done 👍 motorway driving is definitely BY FAR the easiest type of driving for all the reasons you mention. It's so much more pleasant to drive on a motorway than on a horrible unlit narrow country or parked up city lane.

I also don't know how people manage to avoid them unless just driving within a small radius of their home. I've literally been on the M25 and M11 only today and I've not even gone anywhere far - just day to day chores. I also drive all over the UK with my daughter competing in a sport all over the country and motorways are unavoidable (and make life so much easier) ime.

I had a bad experience when I tried to overtake a lorry on a 2 lane motorway during torrential rain.The spray was awful and I had to pull in again, no harm done and there were no visible vehicles behind me so I was fine but I was terrified.I really had to force myself to pass lorries again and I still occasionally get the fear experience when I'm alongside a vehicle.
Don't make your world smaller due to fear and get help if necessary.

Well I’ve been keeping up the motorway driving since I made this post. I’ve decided I don’t actually mind the driving on the motorway, getting on is ok but making sure you are in the right lane approaching cities is still absolutely terrifying. But I do it,

Overtaking lorries in torrential rain (with the splash coming from lorries) is always terrifying 🥶