Learning to drive

I remember my driving instructor telling me I was hesitant in making decisions. I passed my test on the second attempt, but that was many years ago in a small market town. Now I live in a large town where people drive very quickly and many not carefully I have stopped driving altogether. I didn't know until recent years that I was autistic though.

Our son was worried about the multi tasking element of driving so he learned on an automatic and passed second time. His driving is limited to journeys he is familiar with and are not too long or on motorways. We practise an unfamiliar route by taking him in our car first so he can visualise it, then he does it in his car either with one of us initially or on his own, depending on how confident he feels.   Having an automatic car and inbuilt satnav has reduced the multitasking to a level he can cope with and his instructor said he was a delight to teach and a careful sensible driver. If you explain he has autism to the instructor, he might be able to take him out on a session and assess his ability before committing to multiple lessons. Good luck.

One of my vehicular bucket list items that is. Ride a solo in reverse.

I even got a Dnepr gearbox for my Ural M66, but the length was different which made the conversion beyond my ability to accomplish.

I might never get that one done, but last year I ticked "Unicycle", at last, so who knows?  

Haha.. I figured it out when I was going down-hill, towards a junction, with a bus turning into it..

Some motorcyles do have a reverse gear actually, but it's not ususal for them to. Mine doesn't.

I had such a lack of initiative when it came to driving, I needed to map all of the factors in my of experience not through theory, the problem with that is that you’ll die before you figure out all of the angles..

Who knew that motorcycle's don’t a reverse gear?.. Well I know now..  

I like your fun fact

Most UK instructors don't have an automatic car so finding one in your area if you live outside of a city may be difficult.

Some good signs are he wants to drive, and wanting to do it is what made the multitasking easier for me to learn when I learnt. I passed 2nd time with 2 minors, (1st test I got cut up by a white van), which is I'm told quite an good average result as far as test passes go nationally.

The Instructor will do a meet and greet more or less for the first session anyway to get the pupil comfortable and acustomed to the controls.

I was taught by my partner who is an Approved Driving Instructor with a large franchise and he had to deviate slightly in his teaching in that explainations whilst driving had to be kept to bullet points in order for me to not lose focus. My advice is go to a large franchise, and be honest about your son having autism when the instructor first calls you, explain that your son is keen but might take a while or need a slight adjustment to how he is taught (whilst still being taught everything required). And if you don't get on with that instructor after a few sessions then move to another and repeat until you find one that fits. The instructor won't take it personally, you have to find the instructor that fits your needs as a pupil.

And fun fact: Guy Martin (TT racer and all round motor maestro)  is autistic too.

Autism makes some aspects of driving harder I think, but overall I found it easy, and passed my test on the first attempt.

At one point early in my training the instructor overloaded me with "tough love" so I just channeled my annoyance constructively, and quietly parked us, got out, and said "YOU drive the F***Ing car, then". Subsequent lessons seemed to go much better...

You have a 16 year old son, who has it tougher than most, but is perfectly capable of doing more than 90% of the tasks anyone else can do, and because of his Autism he will do some tasks to a very high standard indeed.

If you want to help him succeed in life, then: Don't expect him to fail.

I can't comment from a parental point of view, but from a drivers...

At 18 I thought this was just about my dyslexia, but apparently more to do with my Irlen's and autism...basically, I can't drive.  I can't process all that information at once, can't co-ordinate and am especially disorientated trying to do that through a mirror and objects have a habit of popping up not quite where I see them, my focus is so off.

That said I know other autistic people who drive very well.  All I can say is your son won't know until he's tried. I would try and find an instructor who has some experience of teaching people who are autistic, though.  There maybe some work around strategies to try for some of the barriers.  If he can drive competently this would be a real boost to his independence, particularly if public transport is stressful.