more driving

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Why do you need to drive?

Is there no public transport in your area? Do you need driving for your job?

Thanks for starting this thread. I've had the exact problems driving that you described, but didn't associate it with my autism. Wide, multi-lane highways are really hard for me. And roads that open out onto a wide landscape are very challenging. Bridges or roads on a steep mountainside are next to impossible. A lot of times I can ignore my sensory issues, but I can get overwhelmed when flooded with large amounts of information all at once about heights and speeds and distances. Once on a freeway, I remember that my normal perception of the car moving through a stationary landscape suddenly got replaced by a perception of a still car and interior with an onrushing landscape zooming around me outside of the windshield. That was really disorienting. I can get into such fear that my hands grip the steering wheel painfully tightly and I start to slow way down, which is a bad thing on a highway or freeway. I've gone to enormous lengths to map out routes on Google Maps to make sure I won't encounter something I can't handle and so I know the route by heart in case I might make a wrong turn somewhere. My mind seems to not just be located in the car - I feel as if I'm all over the area, which is why steep roads or bridges scare me to death. I really understand the lemming-like behavior driving on bridges. I've resorted to asking acquaintances to drive on occasion. I also started using Blue-Blocker sunglasses, which help some with the visual overload. The fear and difficulty become less if I drive a route repeatedly, but I've also found that if I try a familiar route after being away from it for a few years, the difficulties return. It's not just an anxiety-related phenomenon and when I've forced myself on a difficult drive, it can get dangerous. I was on anxiety medication for awhile and it did zero to help with the problem. I'm in Colorado and have used shuttle services when I've had to go to the airport as the freeway is a nightmare. There are some local shuttles that I should check out, but I avoid public buses as I've had bad experiences with that when younger - it's not always safe, especially if you're autistic.

No. You need sharp vision. Has anyone tried video game driver training? What you need is enough time to not just get accustomed to the environment, but to develop automatic responses to it, as you do to balance and avoid stuff when walking around.