Can Aspies Drive?

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I gained a driving licence when I was 22, but has I said in another thread I'm thinking of getting a motorcycle as they seem to be more aspie-friendly. Exactly why I'm not sure, but I think it's the better spatial awareness.

i have my license. it took me 8 years just to get learners. i can't remember the last time i drove. i don't have my own car so its hard for me to go for a drive whenever feel like it and my parents were always telling to learn bus routes so i just got used to bussing it every where.

I drive, am a good driver and actually really enjoy it. I believe people with AS can make better drivers than your average NTs due to our extreme ability to focus.

I was lucky to be brought up in the country, so was driving in the fields at a young age and had a motor bike at 15. So when it came to learning/test i didn't have the added pressures that new drivers face... I still like to drive as i still get motion sickness so prefer to drive. However a 2 hour drive is like being up all night. It can wipe me out.

I got into a car accident I wasn't the driver for which prevented me from learning to drive for a good few years.

I learnt to drive around age 25 (around 3 years ago as I'm 27 now)
I have personally got in two accidents since.
I hate to drive and avoid it at all costs.
I drive to school and back (as driving unfamiliar roads will stress me and mortify me), that's it, but I do not like it every time.

I have an 87' poniac fierro though, which I do love

I never got my license and probably never will.

I was a terrible driver in the beginning, complete overload of sensors. But I persevered and now I am not such a bad driver. Once I learned the systems I found driving to be semi relaxing, but i am still get overloaded when I have passengers in the car and i become even less talkative than I am normally.

I also drove a commercial vehicle for a while and i have a pilots licence, which while it can be over stimulating I like the systematic process, there are rules and procedures for everything.

but in saying that i prefer to walk or ride my bicycle and i am self diagnosed.

Back when I was in high school, I was in a study hall/hangout area where every kid in that classroom had high-functioning autism. I was only there my senior year because I had transferred over from another school. There were around 15 of us that year particular year.

And out of those 15, (everybody was a sophomore, there were so freshman at my high school) I was the only one who had his license and drove to school. In fact, the teacher who ran it said that out of many kids he's had in the past, I was only the second who ever drove to school.


To me it's just unbelievable that there's lots of people on the spectrum who have no interest in driving who are clearly capable of it because there's so many benefits of driving. You can drive anywhere you want, listen to any music you like, not rely on someone else to drive for you. I feel like many aspie teens either get anxiety about driving or their parents don't push them enough to go out and become independent. And I will admit that driving is scary at first but just like with anything the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable. Like my first time driving by myself was scary as hell but I knew that I would get used to it and now i'm a pretty good driver.

a lot of the time it's the challenge of buying a car. its hard enoughh for us who are aspies to get a job so it's discouraging to try and go for our license. if we were to get save up and get a car then that would motivate us to learn to drive.

I had let my license lapse a second time before renting a car to get a taxi license. I still got to work by bike. By using a bike instead of a car, I saved lots of money. I also stayed in the car for over 90% of a 12-hr shift, so I only had to work three days a week, leaving time for my vocation. I know a guy who owned a house free and clear in Ottawa by age 29, because he had always used a bike. If you can actually work on transit, that's a time saver. I expect many robot-drivers will make a license less relevant soon.

Thanks for all the replies. Some of them sound similar to my own experiences. Anxiety gets in the way for me, as does the need for concentration on the road 100% (my brain likes to think of several things at once) and as for roundabouts, terrifying things. I have been recommended to get an automatic, because I don't like gears at all (too much multi-tasking), so that's probably the way to go for some of us.
I would suggest, reading all your comments, that if you are an Aspie with co-ordination and anxiety issues (I certainly am), driving is not going to come naturally to you. it is the most alien thing for me. Worse than socialising.

I'm hopeless at ball sports, and I like bicycling partly because the cranks guide my feet, although there is still a great deal of skill to learn about how to pedal efficiently. In general, I don't like real-time events, but I do really enjoy sliding a car through a corner when it is safe to practice. It is one of the few things that gives me full focus. It probably helped that when I was 16, I was on a farm, with a mother who was tired of playing chauffeur, a car available, and a large stack of car magazines.

I got my license 5 years ago and have been driving the whole time. I love driving to be honest. Aside from gridlock traffic, driving is really relaxing for me. I've never been pulled over or anything and the worst thing i've done while driving was back into a trash can when I was first learning how to parallel park. I dunno, it seems aspies usually make either really great or really bad drivers.