Can Aspies Drive?

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1 in 3 Teens With Autism Licensed to Drive

Passed my test a few months ago at the age of 33 and it was my 3rd attempt.

I could drive, it was stressful but I was pretty decent at it.
Over the last decade my physical health has declined to where about a third of the time I have no business driving.

We are each unique: I can drive but I can't handle watching TV. Once had a surgeon who had an aspie son who could watch TV but couldn't handle driving.

I was diagnosed as an adult and remember the difficulty I had while learning to drive in the mid 1970s, including a freakout when the driving school car downshifted on a hill with a very, very, different and louder noise than our family car made when doing that.

I got my driver licence before I was dxed HFA. I had to learn to drive really quickly as I had just gotten a job and the person who gave me a lift there complained, despite me paying them for petrol.

So in about 4 weeks I got my automatic licence and bought a car with my boyfriend's help. I have now had it for over 20 years.

I had 2 accidents in short succession which had me go to the doctor because I thought I was a danger on the road. I was dxed ADHD inattentive type and now take medication before I drive anywhere. That helps a lot.

For my job at a mushroom farm, I had to learn how to drive a forklift. I took longer than the others in my group but I got there in the end. I drove forklifts for 7 years. I also learnt how to drive a Caterpillar front end loader. Did that for 2 years before I left the job.

The kicker here is that I have no depth perception at all. For forklift driving I used shadow cues a lot. For regular driving, size cues. My eyesight is not that great so it could be called pure luck.... j/k. I do ok. I've driven in the city but I prefer country driving.

Ahh, forklifts. I'd always wanted to try one, and got my chance when a truck showed up after my neighbouring business folks had gone home. I stowed the pallets away neatly, and on Monday, they just wanted to confirm who had done it. I've also driven moving trucks, 20' trailers, tractors, a caterpillar, motorcycles, a zero-turn mower, a velomobile and a side-by side tandem bicycle. I've sailed, kayaked, driven power boats and water skiied. I even did a course and elevation change in a DC-3.

i'm a pretty good driver

manual is preferred
i like the control

however,
i can't drive well if distracted by loud and intrusive noise, or annoying and especially touchy passengers.
so unless the passenger(s) are chill ill usually opt out of driving.

I learned to drive the forklift when I worked in a warehouse several years ago. I was a little worried about it, it seemed hard so I was very very careful. Maybe a little overcautious.

But the other woman who learned it at the same time as I did--definitely not an ASD person--was more confident and picked up the skill faster than I did.

Maybe she was a little overconfident. She was the one who pulled down a whole shelving network full of stuff a few months later.

I don't know if I mentioned before but I was a little older when I learned to drive. I was 22. Most people around where I live learn around 16.

I didn't learn to drive until I was 37.

I'm not a bad driver at age 56.

I suppose I am a bit of an outlier as I learned to drive at 16. Of course I was highly motivated due to my lifelong obsession with cars. I've driven forklifts and boats as well as straight trucks and tractor-trailers. Someday I hope to learn to fly a plane as well.

I can't drive yet. Never taken a test but as the years go by I find being a passenger all the time makes me feel like I should be learning. For all I know one day it could become absolutely necessary, nothing stays the same and my circumstances will change one day, plus trains are diabolically expensive.
I worry that I'll have trouble listening to someone instructing me in a car, though. I'm becoming increasingly aware that while I'm hearing a person talking to me, I don't always take in what they're saying. I panic so hard about 'what if I don't understand them', that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Aspies can definitely learn to drive, though it just might take a little bit more time. I was a little bit behind my peers in actually getting my license, but I passed my driving test at 19. Sometimes if I am feeling particularly off, I ask my fiancee to drive us around, but generally I do pretty good both around town and on long trips. I also know of another individual who got their license at 16.

If driving is a goal of yours, I encourage you to get people you trust to tutor you in driving and to get a learner's permit so you can start practicing. Best wishes to you if this is something you pursue!

y'all who get to drive big farm/factory equipment and trucks truly are blessed. i jump at the opportunity to get behind the wheel of anything i can pilot. but rarely does it occur, and i mostly stick with the toyota tacoma and the camry.

Yes, and way back in my day one of my jobs was driving an outside broadcast truck around "Interesting" areas, and enjoying the actual task of driving the thing and the technical tasks of setting up linksback to base for sound, vision, telephone lines etc.

I dislike stop start slow city driving with a passion, and as my home and work are now in a very large city, I have not bothered owning a car. In fact I have had views on the downsides of car ownership with a certain "Aspie" rigour and never actually owned a car, and done my journeys by train , bike or combination of the two.