A lot of people with Autism don't drive cars, why is that?

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My wife recently got a "new" car. It's a Ford from about 10 years back and it includes a bunch of driver aids to make driving more comfortable, and somewhat safer.

I do wonder how many more autistic people will be able to drive with things like blind spot detection, and automatic emergency brakes. Not to mention adaptive cruise control can really improve the ability to focus on jsut braking if the need arise rather than having to worry about both brakes and the accelerator.

I have a 2002 car.. yeah those things would slightly help improve my driving experience

It seems that there are different reasons why some autists find driving difficult, so this might help some but it wouldn't help me. My problem is managing around the other drivers, like gauging my distance from them, when it's okay to pull out or change lanes, etc.

I haven't learned to drive, so I can't be sure until I try, but there are a number of challenges I can see:
1. Not knowing what other people want me to do
2. Multitasking
3. Not being distracted by the wrong parts of the environment
4. My reaction to an unexpected noise is to put my hands over my ears

Yes, I'm a lot more hesitant to do anything the more cars are on the road. I'm on hyper defense and I avoid rush hour like the plague.

Last edited by Cornflake on 20 Jul 2024, 6:40 am, edited 1 time in total.: Fixed quote tag

I got my drivers' license over six years ago.

I took specialized drivers' lessons and passed my road test on the first try.

I drove once after that.

Now that door-to-door public transportation can be assured along with other conviences, there are many reasons that I don't drive.

1. As far as driving in general, there is too much going on for me both in the car and the surroundings around me.

2. It is not only I that I have to think about but it's the many other careless motorists out there that act sudden and sensless.

3. The cost of not only the car but other issues can be overwhelming. Besides the car or the payment, there is also upkeep, maintenance, fuel, tolls, and much more that it involves that would put me way over my means.

4. Just the anxiety thinking about driving just makes me unsettled.

5. I have a lazy left eye thart makes my vision more challenging.

It is not discounting that autistic people in general cannot drive, it's just too much for me. I know that there's some autistic people that drive and many who can't.

Until I had the security of knowing that I can get places via public transportation under my belt, I worried that I would have to drive. My employer is very accomodating to me not driving as the clients we serve use the same buses as I do.

So, driving is not a worry for me.

Paratransit is a form of transportation that offers door to door service when access to a public bus route is not easiy accessible. I use it to go to work, day services and medical appointments. There are programs in my state for those with disabiliteis that reuduce the fare greatly and a medical program under medicaid that pays for transportation for medical services. They are smaler than the traditional public or fixed route as we call them buses, but are operated through the local transportation authority.

It never hurts to try. I learned and took my road test and passed at 33. After understanding that I don't have to takes a great amont of stress off of me because it is challenging. It was a goal I had and I renew my license as I need to. I have siblings that are NT, have a license and don't drive and they live good lives.

being late to driving [got my license @ 20] severely hamstrung my early adulthood, couldn't find work as all the jobs were so far away, living in the country as i did and still do now.

I would assume so, some of us aren't going to be ok to drive with anything shy of full self-driving.

Blindspot sensors and adaptive cruise control are getting more and more common, but they still fetch a pretty penny.

self-driving cars can't come soon enough for me.

but yeah, it seems fear or being scared to drive a car, is common for many people on the autism spectrum

I'm not convinced they'll ever become viable on roads with human drivers.

If they can't operate safely around human drivers they shouldn't be allowed on the road at all.

They will eventually, but I do think there will be a period where it's humans driving with near complete AI systems as the backup.

I think the FSD (Full Self Driving) of Tesla is becoming extremely good. As good as a human driver. But I still don't trust those self-driving cars. The system requires you to intervene when things get wrong or when it disengages for whatever reason, like a driving instructor is intervening when the driver student is making a (dangerous) mistake.

It is very expensive and then I still think (without the intension to insult Tesla): I can better drive myself. I almost never make a mistake. And many other drivers are very rude. Speeding, tailgating, driving in the middle of the road, driving too slow (I experienced that on Polish highways when I traveled from Berlin to Gdańsk, and from Gdańsk to Warsaw), not seeing me, although I have priority, etc. Can a self-driving car handle that behaviour?

My car, a Kia Picanto DynamicLine, is not even a big car. It isn't a small car either. But it has a lot of features that cars from several years ago didn't have. It has cruise control, rear view camera, it beeps when something is wrong (too few fuel (but I can drive several miles though), too low tire pressure, temperature lower than 4 degrees Celcius). It has airconditiong (when it is very hot outside, it can be comfortable in the car). Mirrors can be adjusted from inside electronically. When I got my driver's license, cars didn't have things like that.