What persentage of people with autism can drive?

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How many % of people with ASD can drive?

I drive.

But asking here isn't going to give you an accurate answer. If you want solid numbers you will have to do some research.

I have no trouble driving at all. I passed the driving test on my first try. My NT friend took 6 tries to pass the same test. She was mad. But eventually practically everyone passes who keeps attempting it. Unless you have some severe motor/sensory disability of course.

I have no trouble driving at all. Since aspies are usually such rule-followers, I usually stick to the traffic laws (I've only been pulled over once in my 15 years of driving). And since I have an attention to detail, I can easily make split-second decisions and estimates regarding distance, my speed, and other cars' speeds.

Only real times I could attribute my AS being a problem is when someone was giving a bunch of directions at once. I nearly flunked the highway portion of Driver's Ed since the instructor shelled out about a dozen different instructions on the entrance ramp alone.

I don't have any idea what percentage of us drive, but I've been driving since 18, and I think HFA can actually lead to superior driving skills and safety. The lack of competitive urges and less aggression, and the desire to just follow the rules and not make waves, seems to apply here. Also, it seems to me that (speaking for myself and at least two other Aspies/with HFA), the physics and science part of driving is much easier. Case in point, I seem to be able to predict where a moving hazard ahead will be, when I get there... Such as airborne debris on the highway, or if someone has crashed in front of me, and is spinning out of control, I have (God willing) been able to "see" where the obstacle is going, and avoided it, whereas other drivers just jam the brakes on, or take other steps which sometimes can WORSEN the situation. I've personally seen many accidents in which one driver makes an unsafe sudden turn in front of oncoming traffic, and the oncoming traffic tried to panic-stop, while the left turner also panics and stops mid-turn... RIGHT IN FRONT of the oncoming car unable to stop. BANG! Using split-second thinking, and knowing the mass of both vehicles, I might elect to head straight for where the turning car is at the moment spotted, seeing by it's speed and mass that it will move an additional 9 or 10 feet before stopping. That way, I have passed behind it safely. Certainly no guarantees, but it has worked many times for me. When an airborne object is bouncing around on the highway ahead, I can see whether I need to aim left or right, based on the speed and distance. I see other people screwing up on that all the time, and hitting the object with almost perfect aim, in stead of evading it.

Just a few thoughts there...

Charles

I can drive. it took me until I was 22 to get my drivers' license though.

I've looked and there doesn't seem to be any research on it. But there are lots of articles out there talking about autistic people learning to drive, so it seems to be quite common for us to learn to drive, though it's also pretty common to learn late.

I learned at age 25. My mother, who is also autistic but not diagnosed (trust me when I say she's autistic; I know it when I see it), learned at age 36.

i can drive. just not legaly

My Mom, who's most probably aspie, drives in a perfectionist manner and is probably less safe than average. Sometimes she slows down suddenly thinking she may have missed a turn.

I try and drive safely, go with the flow of traffic, at times maybe slightly slowly, aware that the left lane of the freeway (here in America) is the "fast" lane, but not hugely fast. It's loosely-goosey, feel-and-texture, staying medium alert. It is not perfectionist.

My brother-in-law once explained, not only do I want to keep track of whether someone is in my blindspot, I want to stay out of another driver's blind spot. And that dynamic process helped me understand. And both of course in zen, nonperfectionist manner.

i am an excellent driver.

I can't drive but that is primarily because of my epilepsy. I still sometimes have seizures so it is not safe for me to drive.

I've been driving since age 16 and licensed since age 17 (I'm now 60) and at one time since I am such a perfectionist, I was considered to be the person who made the final judgment on my coworkers' drving abilities on the island where I used to work and live. I did not particularly care to learn to drive though which is why I did not start until age 16 when the learners age was 14 in Texas where I lived at the time (mid 1960s) and all the other guys were so eager to drive at 14.

When I was first learning, we were out on a slow drive one day on an uncrowded road and I was making a turn in an open area on the side of the road. A car stopped for me to finish the turn at about 2 mph and I did not know to turn the wheel back before the turn was completed. My mom started screaming for me to stop, I froze in Aspie terror and ran into the side of that stopped car. The judge in a little one room office on South Congress Ave in Austin, TX gave me a nasty talking to, not even knowing what my mom had done and after that I absolutely refused to drive until my dad finally got me back in the saddle a year later.

The one thing about AS that makes driving more difficult for me is the distraction of text printed on the side of tractor trailers, road signs, license tags and similar. Whenever I see text, I tend to rearrange the letters in my mind so as to make symmetrical patterns and seeing such text while driving can make me obsess on it to the point that I become excessively distracted unless I consciously force myself to ignore such things. Otherwise I am probably a better driver than most people.

The thread is dead.....long live the thread!

To answer the OP, probably more than most people would think. Particularly in the US, where there really is'nt a choice outside of a few cities.

What percentage can people with autism drive?

I must assume a large majority of them, especially high functioning ones as if it's the same percentage as NT people who drives.

Which really upsets me because it feels like that I am very alone when it comes to AS people like me who don't drive because of it.

I have a learner's permit, but then again I lack communication skills when it comes to a scenario where I want to get a car check for a repair, an oil change, or talking with a traffic officer. Along with the unusual stimming that comes out of me every once in a while(where I am trying to control it). And then the fear as well where people don't want me to drive.

So yeah, when AS started to no longer be an excuse of not driving, that's when I started to feel depressed.

p.s. I do apologize for replaying to an old thread but just want to share.

I don't.

Too much to focus on and the unpredictability of other people; it just shuts my brain down.

I'm fine with driving on empty roads (such as the farm here).