Why is driving so hard?

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I drove on the road for the first time yesterday, with my dad in the passenger seat supervising. I'm terrible at it. I'm having so much trouble with staying aware of everything that's going on, and cars are so bulky. It's so difficult for me to remain conscious of the fact that while steering I have to not only keep myself away from the side of the road, but also the whole other half of the car that I'm not on. I feel like driving would be easier if I was in the center of the car for some reason, as opposed to one side.

Also I have a tendency to over-steer on turns.

I'm 19 years old and I'm starting to worry that I will never get my license, which will really prevent me from being a fully independent adult. As it is now I always have to build my time around other people's schedules and I can't get a job more than walking distance from my house. I don't want to be stuck like this forever. But learning to drive is so hard. I've thought about going to a professional driving school but that'd be worse because I'd be driving in an unfamiliar car and place and with unfamiliar people, and that would have the potential to be overwhelming on a whole new level. Does anyone have any advice on how to make learning to drive an easier experience for me and a less stressful experience for my parents?

I don't have my license and I drove for the first time at 16 years old I believe or 17. cant remember. But I suck at it. I dont do it enough which is one reason, but it is hard, I agree. People say it's easy, but I think thats NTs. It's so much multitasking and fast thinking. Also I hate parking, and especially reversing. It's so hard because of my coordination and the fact that the vehicle really controld whats going on, your just moving the wheel to control where it goes. Its hard.

Although I do believe with more practice you will get better, you may just take longer. Also, you are 19 which makes it harder because you're probably feeling late, you are nervous, you dont wanna learn BUT you wanna be able to get somewhere. Age plays a huge role in how well we do certain things. But just keep at it. At least you're a girl, you dont need to know how to drive to get a bf at your age because guys dont care about material things. I have to learn to drive to get a gf, but then again I live on a college campus so it probably wont matter much to the girls living there. Not that dating should matter, but your gender plays a huge role in the advantages a license can give you. Being a girl, you can basically get a ride from anybody. Me, I have to walk..

But, YOU NEED YOUR LICENSE, and you should go to driving school. I'm starting mine in August. and it's 350 dollars. I have my permit. You need your permit for driving school. And also girl or boy, a lot of jobs dont hire you without your license because they feel you are less dependable. I know its stupid. They feel you may not be able to get there in time.

Family members are the worst possible people to teach you to drive, because each has his own ideas of how you should drive, many of which are completely incorrect.

I'm convinced that this is why there are so many terrible drivers, at least in America.

But they are professionals and can help you by objective examination of your driving skills and errors, with positive feedback, rather than screaming at you.

Do it--you'll be a much better driver as a result.

I want to encourage you to keep practicing with the same car. Soon your sense of space will include the size of the car and it will be easier to understand the space you are sitting in, the space between you and the opposite door, and the space between you and the edge of the road. I remember experiencing this when I started driving, and then I experience it again each time I drive a larger vehicle. Best Wishes.

I just have to learn my parallel parking and thats bout it really. but ive been stuck with some issues on it, namely that regardless of using the mirrors and whatnot, turning my head and body to look, I can still never get withing 6 inches of the curb, which is a requirement for passing the test in my area.

This.

Also, as you keep at it, you will start filtering out unimportant visual data, which will stop it from being overwhelming.

But still, I've been driving for 11 years, and I get stressed in areas like Downtown(random idiocy) or the freeway (speed). It may or may not go away, but it does become very manageable.

I can't drive. I've never had a driver's license. My problems are threefold: I space out, get over-stimulated, and/or have trouble with judging depth and distance.

It's naturally going to feel weird the first time. It gets better with practice. Sometimes it's a good idea to find a stretch of empty road like out in the country just to practice. Remember when you first rode a bike? Also, the parent thing. My father was high strung and such a perfectionist he traumatized my sister and she didn't learn how to drive until her husband taught her. I didn't get mine til I was 18 for much the same reason.

Driving is a skill, and like playing a musical instrument or firing a weapon, it takes lots of practice over time for the actions to become smooth and natural. You'll get it, just keep working at it and don't expect it to be easy right away. You're practicing.

I put off getting my license for a year or more after my peer group as a teen, preferred to be a passenger and had plenty of free rides and not that many places to go. It wasn't until one of my cousins got his first car and it was a classic '66 Mustang that I fell in love with the idea of having my own car and decided I wanted to learn. Yeah, parents are nerve wracking to learn from, but in the state where I was living then, I was required to take driver's ed at school as well, even after I had a license and yes, it was a whole different kind of stress, but I survived it and passed. All things considered, it was a hell of a lot easier than Algebra.

If I recall, what helped me the most was driving with a same-age cousin who had already been driving for several years. He didn't make me nearly as nervous as a parent or an instructor with a gradebook. Its always a good idea in the beginning to find a nice deserted stretch of country road, or a huge empty parking lot.

This is only your first time right? Your skills sound perfectly normal. Please tell us your Daddy isn't letting you drive in the streets of a city till you get used to the motion of the car. I had to use empty parking lots and country roads for months, and I'm not the hand-eye challenged kind. I got really scared at my first time on the freeway. Now a days I can't get enough.

Last edited by LiendaBalla on 09 Jul 2010, 10:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I agree with all those saying it gets easier with time/practice. One trick my dad taught me (but I learned from an instructor; learning from relatives in notoriously horrible) for lane position was to sight across the hood to the white line at the right side of the road. Usually there's a feature (bump or fold) in the hood that will line up with that when the car is a few feet from the line. You can find out by going to a quiet road and lining up various parts of the hood with the line and then stopping and having the passenger open the door to see how far away you are. I had to be careful not to fixate on that, but it's useful when oncoming cars are going by.

And there's muscle memory for all sorts of things that you're still having to do consciously. After 25 years I don't think "get in, start motor, ... watch the crosswalk ... (100 more things)"; it's all compacted into one giant "drive to the bank" function. Sometimes I can't even remember how I got there.

This has nothing to do with AS.

This is normal.

IF you think that driving in your country is hard, then think again.....

They are making all those rules for you there in order to make your driving life EASIER.



Where I live, there's almost no driving rules, one has to reply on common sense and total attention.

Drivers here sometimes don't respect the light traffics and many of them don't even work lol.

Road lines are just a decoration.

Policeman are true corrupt, we need a batman!


I often compared my 15-minute journey to work to a Nintendo game. "Dodge the holes in the road. Don't squash the traffic agent. Watch out for the scooter that bursts out of a one-way street at high speed. Alert, someone high-speeding on a curve in the tunnel! Hit the brakes, taxicab stopping right in front without signalling. Crossing cat! Watch the bump!" An exhausting experience! Weeeeeee!



Let me visually show you some of the dangerous 'foes' and deadly traps I face everyday while driving , it's shooooooooow time:


Clown Scooters : Those idiots make silly show-offs between cars , totally unprotected.



Trucks .... and more ret*ds...



Funny shocking ads: Those ads are funny enough to distract the driver.



This ad is epic because of its funny warning notice , gawd this is a killer one



The BreadMen! Those "clean" UFO breads are hard enough to break your side mirrors! Not to forget the Veggieman, the BeansMen and other types of *Snack*Men.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8812/065bt0100.jpg


Oil mules: Do not underestimate this cute mule, he is armed with a large reservoir of lantern oil.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5642/img0078fo.jpg


More to come?

Drove in circles around a parking lot around a month ago, and this was my first time driving since then. But I drove in a different car this time and it was in a little neighborhood with no line down the middle of the road, mailboxes and parked cars completely lining the side of every street, etc etc. City streets would be even scarier, because the city of Buffalo is populated with some of the most absurdly bad drivers I've ever seen. However, in a small cramped neighborhood like that there was literally no room to make a mistake, which was super duper stressful.

I'm hoping next time I can convince my dad to let me drive out in a more spacious area, like where all the cornfields and farms are. I'd have to drive faster but at least I'd have breathing room.

Oh and thanks everyone for the advice and the words of encouragement. I know this isn't really an AS-associated problem but I figured that you guys might be able to give advice that's easier for me to understand than the advice my dad gives, which doesn't make any sense to me.

Learning to drive is very scary, especially if you have to learn in a city.

I was lucky. I learned how to drive in an old clunker on my Uncle's farm and then on country roads.

I will tell you this. Once you get the hang of it it is like riding a bicycle. You do it without thinking.