I dont think, that a driving simulator helps much. Driving Simulator is easy and like an Computer game: Relaxing.
Reality are thousend of sounds, some belonging to the car and important, some belonging to traffic: Important, 1000 more belonging to everything else, unimportant....
Also streets dont match simulators. On simulator streets streets dont have thousend different broads, no oil spots, no water spots, no people making their house sale half on the street and so on...
From my oppinion: Practice, practice, practice...in reality. The more movements, you can do automatic without thinking the more ressources you have for watching your surrounding.
As long as you are still focused on driving at the right distance to the right street side and handling of the car itself, the less you can concentrate on your surroundings.
And dont give up. When i learned driving in driving school I even cried one time, because it was really, really too much for me the first days and you have to watch for everything, because your brain dont now until now whats important, and whats not, so you have to look and hear for everything.
The more you drive, the more experienced your brain becomes, so the handling of the car becomes intuitive. Also your brain becomes more and more experienced from deciding whats important while driving and whats not.
Whats really important: Do not push! For example; You should only drive over a crossing if you as driver have the feeling, that you are fully aware of everything that goes on at the crossing. Maybe that can be 15 seconds longer at the start, and maybe an NT-driving beginner can decide much faster, that he now has seen everything going on at the crossing, so he can drive through it now. Specially at the beginning, Asperger can need much more time, because the brain is not trained on filtering the important from the unimportant stuff, so they must concentrate on everything as driving starter while NT driver get at least some of the information already filtered.
So at the beginning I was a very slow driver and when i got my driving license, my father (driving trucks and busses) wanted to get me more experience, so whenever he wanted to drive somewhere or we drove as family, he let me drive. So he didnt comment anything, or talk to me or anything (if it was no emergency), he just sat beside me, and watching and only commented AFTER i was ready with driving. So technically I drove ok, i was just a bit slow and needed more experience, so my father cared that i had the chance to get the experience. The only thing he told me, that as long as I drive really slow, I shall drive at the right side from time to time, so the cars behind me can pass. ^^
First year I also couldnt drive with the radio on, so silent music on an empty highway was ok, but not more.
When driving or talking about traffic situations, i can only say from my oppinion, but you should avoid about talking of too much details. So the more i had experience with driving, the less I care for every detail and I only get the important one. So if I have a traffic situation there is no blond woman with pink cloths, no red limousine, and so on and so on... There is parking car, driving car, parking SUV, driving SUV, solid walker walking in the middle of the sidewalk, deflected walker tumbling aroung, child on mothers hand, child going on his own next to his mother, dog walking free, dog walking with short leash, dog walking with long leash... and so on. I know that NTs see much more from traffic then I do, but I need to focus on the important and the more driving experience I have, the more my brain does this on his own. So when I drive with my partner, and I see a child walking the sidewalk, jumping a little bit around or driving with a bicycle on the sideway, I see him directly, I drove slower, see to have a bit more distance form the right side, so that nothing happens if the child falls down... so I absolutely react to the important details of the situations without thinking...but if my partner asks me one second after passing the child if I also found the clothing of the child cute, I cant answer. So talking around with NTs while driving, dont help me much, because most time they talk about the "silver car" and so on. Which forces me to unfocus from the important things, look for all cars, driving around, filtering the ones that are silver, and then trying to find out which could be the one that fits in the situation....Sorry, but this is useless for me.
I am now 33 years old, and I only got in two accidents. So one car hit me while driving over a crossing, ignoring the red traffic light he had. (I had green.) and one minor parking damage I was responsible for, which would have been nothing if i hadnt got a damned trailor coupling on my car, and actually I am having since 6 years a job with outside service. I even managed to get some bills because of driving to fast in the last years. So i am not proud of that, but in earlier times I never had to spend attention if I am driving too fast, so it shows me that I am more and more used to driving.
So from my oppinion: Practice, practice, practice... and silence. ^^ Theres no need to tell someone, that he should be getting faster, because the one who is driving is responsible for driving only when HE himself feels its safe to drive and he will start driving faster on his own, the more practice he has. If there are real failures like misinterpreting traffic signs and so on, sure you should say that. But everything thats about getting more routine needs no talking, its just needs practice.
14 Jan 2013, 1:13 pm
