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Driving and Autism

Silver Fox

Dear Autistic friends

I am a neuro typical woman with a partner who very much seems to have ASD, although he will never examine this or go there himself. We have a 14-year-old boy who is not autistic. 

My partner only learnt how to drive after turning 50. He's now 57. He does seem to struggle with the multi tasking required and gets very stressed. I think he especially struggles with judging speed and distance, taking corners too fast, reading road signs, and directions. Omg his stress about where he is heading is through the roof.

The problem is, I find his driving genuinely worrying. I have been driving myself for 40 years. He very much does not want me to express my stress because this makes him more stressed and that just makes it worse. He becomes abusive and shouts at me, telling me to shut up etc. He makes me sit in the back and makes our son navigate for him, then gets stressed when that goes wrong!

Basically this is a family problem. Am I wrong to put his driving problems down to potential ASD? Does anyone here have problems driving and if so what are the challenges? 

Parents

  • I might be able to give some insight to the problems some autistic people face when driving. I passed the driving test first attempt and drove for many years on a daily basis, often driving between Manchester and London for a number of years. I stopped driving to work daily and took the bus many years ago, partly because a number of choke points on my route were driving me crazy and partly because my wife needed the car to ferry the kids to and from school after we moved house. After this, I quickly lost confidence in driving and only do so a few times a year, or in dire emergency now.

    One of my basic difficulties is that I have low levels of trust in other people. I do not trust other drivers to be rational and do things like let me change lanes if I indicate that I wish to do so. This means that I like to be in the right lane way before most people would think is necessary. This is stressful. I am also acutely aware of pressure of expectation from other drivers, I find myself driving faster than I would really like to if someone appears to be 'pushing me' along by being too close behind. This is stressful. There seem to be over-complex one-way systems everywhere and there are over-complex junctions that leave me guessing about how to navigate them to get to where I want to go, they seem to have been designed by people with no sense of logic. This is stressful.

    In short as Sartre said,  "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", I think this applies for most autists generally, and especially to me when driving.

Reply

  • I might be able to give some insight to the problems some autistic people face when driving. I passed the driving test first attempt and drove for many years on a daily basis, often driving between Manchester and London for a number of years. I stopped driving to work daily and took the bus many years ago, partly because a number of choke points on my route were driving me crazy and partly because my wife needed the car to ferry the kids to and from school after we moved house. After this, I quickly lost confidence in driving and only do so a few times a year, or in dire emergency now.

    One of my basic difficulties is that I have low levels of trust in other people. I do not trust other drivers to be rational and do things like let me change lanes if I indicate that I wish to do so. This means that I like to be in the right lane way before most people would think is necessary. This is stressful. I am also acutely aware of pressure of expectation from other drivers, I find myself driving faster than I would really like to if someone appears to be 'pushing me' along by being too close behind. This is stressful. There seem to be over-complex one-way systems everywhere and there are over-complex junctions that leave me guessing about how to navigate them to get to where I want to go, they seem to have been designed by people with no sense of logic. This is stressful.

    In short as Sartre said,  "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", I think this applies for most autists generally, and especially to me when driving.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    Hello, thanks for this, it really does make a huge amount of sense actually. I think my partner might have the same problem. People are untrustworthy on the road quite often so it isn't irrational and driving involves doing a lot of things all at the same time. If you're trying to work out junctions at the same time it's full on. He definitely seems to feel pushed along by others