Driving phobia

[mamasco]

Anyone have experience of this?

I suffer from anxiety/stress and I've now built up driving to be a big source of anxiety in my head. I don't have my licence but have been learning for 8 years on and off so can drive. Failed my test couple of times but it's taken me a while to realise it's down to my anxiety. Not had any driving practice since I failed last time, 2 years ago. Too nervous.

I get so anxious about other drivers unpredictability and that I'm not in control. I have just had a baby so being able to drive would be a great help to DS and my life.

I really struggled with learning to drive and found test anxiety a nightmare. I passed on my test on the 6th attempt. I decided to change test centres as the ones near where I lived all had very low pass rates, and I got a fab book about using nlp ( neurolinguistic programming ) to help you pass it came with a track to listen to too which really helped. I found myself repeating bits of it to myself during the test which helped me stay calm. I'll have a look for it and let you know what its called.

"other drivers unpredictability"

At the very real risk of sounding like your grandad, (which is actually a distinct possibility), I have been driving for near on 40 years. One thing I heve learned from my experience is that it is vey easy to understand and predict other drivers behaviour.

That may sound ridiculous. You ask yourslf, how can I tell what someone is going to do? The answer is down to observation of very small details in the driving and understanding how people behave. This is something that women should excel at as you are used to noticing the tell tale signs from your child which say "I'm hungry" or "I'm distressed". This state of mind shows itself in how someone drives. Once you learn to read it, you can easliy predict what someone is going to.

The only caveat is that ledarning to recognise how someone is driving and what they are going to do takes a bit of time and experience. And, yes you have guessed it, you need to be on the road to get much of that experience.

The book is called "Use your mind to Learn How to Drive" by Martin Woodward I had it on kindle with the audio track too.