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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 was terrified when I learnt to drive. The second lesson was on the south circular in London, one of the busiest roads.

    I passed first time. I had memorised the highway code, had been reading it for over 10 years, plus I read an advanced driving book.

    I was scared of having an accident at first, or holding people up, or getting on the way, etc. but it passed.

    I became over-confident I think and wrote off a car after about 7 years of driving (only accident Ive had in over half a million miles, and I have driven in multiple countries). I had another car I had to go and get so was driving a couple of hours later. If not for this I would have struggled to do it again. I agonised about it for months afterwards.

    Every near miss I have ever had I replay to see what I did wrong and how to avoid it in future.

    I would suggest you just ask him to slow down, to remember there are others in the car and that he does not need to feel pressured by others. There is nothing to prove. I bought into the racing about thing as I falsely believed the image that it was what you did to be cool and prove you were competent. I stopped that 

    I have had advanced lessons, including on track, and have driven at up to 180 at Spa, Monza, Silverstone, Nurburgring at a pretty fair pace. Driving on track can slow you down on the road.

    So autism is not a block to driving well. But I do not have dyspraxia. Indeed I used to be able walk on stilts and I can still juggle.

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