Learning to drive with ASD

Yep I had all that and even when I'd passed my test on the third attempt I had to stop driving for a few years because of constant nightmares, I did have some CBT which has enabled me to drive again, but not on motorways as I find them overwhelming and I'm not happy on dual carriage ways either, although I can just about manage the A55 here, as long as I don't go east of Bangor.

I had to have cigarettes, chocolate and Rescue Remedy to get me through an hours lesson, it took me about 2 years to learn, a lot of people think driving comes naturally, it dosent', its not a skill anyone's born with, getting your hands, feet and brain to do different things is difficult and takes a while to learn. I ended up with 4 different instructors before I found the right one, he was the only one who asked me questions about what I found difficult and why, never having been a road user before and having non driving parents, it was a totally unfamiliar thing for me, I had to be taught road sense, something people who cycle already knew, we'd sit in the parked car with the instructor stood outside holding up fingers for me to change gear without having to look at what I was doing, that took a while to learn and I had a few meltdowns whilst doing so. I just felt so stupid and useless, but I did learn, I think its similar to learning to read, for ages you're just saying the individual letters that make up a word out loud but they don't really make any sense until suddenly they do and you can read a whole word without having to spell out each letter. 

I find country roads much easier, many of the roads here are single track and very windy, many people panic on them, I don't because theres almost no other traffic to deal with. I think that was one of the hardest things to learn, dealing with other traffic, opperating the actual car wasn't as difficult as I thought, but having to cope with other cars doing unpredictable things and getting in my ways was really hard.

Oddly I found it easier to drive at night than during the day, it wasn't so much that there was less traffic, but that I'm a night person and more relaxed at night. The other thing I found was going out in bad weather was good for my confidence, I thought I'd far rather encounter snow or something for the first time when I had someone who could control the car and it didn't matter so much if I got it wrong.

One thing I would say is just because your instructor knows about autism dosent' make them the right person to teach you, many instructors seem to have a one size fits all approach and as we know we need people who can adapt to how we learn not the other way around. 

Yep I had all that and even when I'd passed my test on the third attempt I had to stop driving for a few years because of constant nightmares, I did have some CBT which has enabled me to drive again, but not on motorways as I find them overwhelming and I'm not happy on dual carriage ways either, although I can just about manage the A55 here, as long as I don't go east of Bangor.

I had to have cigarettes, chocolate and Rescue Remedy to get me through an hours lesson, it took me about 2 years to learn, a lot of people think driving comes naturally, it dosent', its not a skill anyone's born with, getting your hands, feet and brain to do different things is difficult and takes a while to learn. I ended up with 4 different instructors before I found the right one, he was the only one who asked me questions about what I found difficult and why, never having been a road user before and having non driving parents, it was a totally unfamiliar thing for me, I had to be taught road sense, something people who cycle already knew, we'd sit in the parked car with the instructor stood outside holding up fingers for me to change gear without having to look at what I was doing, that took a while to learn and I had a few meltdowns whilst doing so. I just felt so stupid and useless, but I did learn, I think its similar to learning to read, for ages you're just saying the individual letters that make up a word out loud but they don't really make any sense until suddenly they do and you can read a whole word without having to spell out each letter. 

I find country roads much easier, many of the roads here are single track and very windy, many people panic on them, I don't because theres almost no other traffic to deal with. I think that was one of the hardest things to learn, dealing with other traffic, opperating the actual car wasn't as difficult as I thought, but having to cope with other cars doing unpredictable things and getting in my ways was really hard.

Oddly I found it easier to drive at night than during the day, it wasn't so much that there was less traffic, but that I'm a night person and more relaxed at night. The other thing I found was going out in bad weather was good for my confidence, I thought I'd far rather encounter snow or something for the first time when I had someone who could control the car and it didn't matter so much if I got it wrong.

One thing I would say is just because your instructor knows about autism dosent' make them the right person to teach you, many instructors seem to have a one size fits all approach and as we know we need people who can adapt to how we learn not the other way around. 

I learnt to drive in a quiet town and encountered few roundabouts. I had 3 different instructors.  My last one noticed that I was slow to make decisions. I also have a poor sense of spatial awareness. When I did pass I found it useful to be able to drive and enjoyed going for drives in the country. 

When I moved I found the traffic more difficult,  so only drove particular routes and eventually I stopped driving because I couldn't think quick enough with the driving around here and there are lots of motorways/dual carriageways.