Why Am I So Scared To Drive?

Question

I have had my permit for over a year now and I am due to get my license. I am a really good driver when it comes to town/rural roads. I live in the mountains of NC so NO ROADS ARE STRAIGHT they are always curvy and you always need to stay alert lol. But for some reason I am so nervous to go on highways and interstates, especially due to changing lanes. I had no problems what so ever when i was with my drivers ed teacher, but for some reason I just get scared. Im just confussed on if i got my mirrors set up correctly and that i can see every car. So basically its just passing lanes that scared the c**p out of me. Please give me some tips!

I hate how my drivers ed took us to roads in the middle of no where that had no traffic for about a week and then took us downtown and ont he interstate for only 1 day, i think its worthless, i need more practice for city traffic. I live in Asheville, NC, so the traffic gets very congested here durring peak hours! Thanks for your help! I greatly appreciate it!

Answer 1

i cant even drive all the way yet and im scared about driving on the highway... im still learning how to drive.. i can ger my license any day after sept.14

Answer 2

i'm scared too. i'm afraid of hitting people, and i almost hit the cars. rawr

Answer 3

Try This one. You need to Adjust your Attitude First, That is get your mind focused on you taking you car out and about with out wrecking the dang thing. Always and I mean Always Confirm your actions before you take them, Like, Is the lane clear, How much room do it have to stop. Go out and cruise around the neighbor hood alone and develop your own style and Attitude. I myself have had some close calls and anymore of a split second and I wouldn't be here,not everybody is fortunate, but when you are driving, Then YES YOU ARE GOD and your friends will have to respect that or you can mess up pretty bad

Answer 4

Your fear of driving is what's called a "conditioned" response.

Every time you drive, or maybe even think about driving, your subconscious mind remembers what happened the last time you drove and how you responded. It's easy for it to remember because it left a strong emotional imprint in your mind.

It wrongly associates that bad reaction of anxiety and fear with driving, and assumes that it must be dangerous and a threat, and activates the flight or flight response. This learning is done by the formation of 'neural pathways" in the brain.

Every time you drive in the future and experience anxiety and fear, you strengthen your brain's false belief and create MORE neural pathways, resulting in a faster and more sever phobia reaction. You actually "condition" yourself to be fearful!

This is how we learn many things, like riding a bike. At first, you have to really pay attention to what you're doing and it's awkward as your brain creates the neural pathways for the balance and coordination of bike riding. After a short time however, as those neural pathways multiply and grow stronger, you ride and make many subtle adjustments without conscious thought, it's automatic, you don't have to think about how to ride, you just do and your subconscious knows how.

In a similar way, as you create more neural pathways in your brain around driving and fear, you make your reaction of anxiety more automatic, more deeply ingrained in your subconscious, until that reaction occurs without your even thinking about it.

Since this learning occurs on a subconscious level, the secret to overcoming your fear of driving is to erase the old limiting neural pathways of anxiety and replace them with new neural pathways of confidence and calm