Published on 12, July, 2020
It took me many years to learn to drive and only eventually passed my test in an automatic car in my 40s.
Today I've just come home from driving to Chichester and the other drivers drove me a bit mad.
Motorbikes cutting me up, people doing 20 miles an hour in a 60 zone, me getting out of the way of 2 ambulances and no-one letting me back out etc etc etc.
I seem to like driving less and less and am more inclined to stay at home than I ever was.
There is just so much going on around you to be aware of, especially in cities (with pedestrians too).
So, 2 questions.
1. Is my difficulty with learning in a manual car, which I took at the time to be poor co-ordination, but I wasn't aware of my autism, an autistic thing?
2. Does anyone else find driving difficult (and, again, is it an autistic thing)?
I was bought up in a coach hire business, when it’s a family business there wasn’t really any choice. I passed first time, I find my brain will become robotic when driving. It turned out that I couldn’t be sent anywhere carrying passengers, to have that many people so near to me, making noise and an expectation of me was too much, my anxiety would go sky high and I would normally get lost. I found that just doing the same school run with the same children and route everyday was the only way I could function. The anxiety would still be there but I could manage it. I didn’t know I was autistic then, I occasionally will cross paths with some of my old school children. The comment I’ve had is,” your the driver that never spoke.”
Not sure if this will amuse. I have an uncle on the spectrum who used to work for a coach company (as a driver). There had been an occasion (circa 1960s) when a young child on board the coach had been playing a penny whistle. It was annoying the other passengers, in addition to annoying my uncle and being an unwelcome distraction. He stopped the coach, marched up to the child, took the penny whistle and snapped it in half... much to the relief of the other passengers.