Are most aspies not able to drive?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm on the road for over two hours every day, and I often find it relaxing. The only thing that really bothers me is my sensitivity to light. Sunglasses are a necessity because of the sun glaring on the winter snow. Headlights on a dark night make everything look pitch black by comparison.

Road noise and heavy traffic are a bit overstimulating, but I adjust in due time. The more you drive, the more you get used to it. Just like any overstimulation issue, exposure actually helps.

I have my license, although it took me more than a year of countless lessons (and one crash) to get it - my parents still don't let me drive on my own to places I'm not that familiar with though. I actually do feel like learning how to drive helped me overcome some of my autistic characteristics - ex. trouble multitasking, trouble gaging depth/speed/etc, trouble thinking on my feet...

When I turned 16, I wanted to drive to high school because I was tired of taking the school bus. So I got my license at age 17 and have been driving since then. I never got any tickets or have been in any accidents so far. You've just gotta remember the rules of the road and ignore any hostile drivers.

The most challenging thing about driving is entering the highway or expressway. When you enter the highway, you'll see so many cars speeding at 55-65 mph. So when I enter the highway, I try to accelerate on the lane on the far right before moving to the lanes on the left.

At the age of 30, Ive only had two learning spells, which ended in disaster.

Ive not had a single lesson in 10 years after a really negative experience first time around. Main difficulties for me were just 'stage fright' as soon as I sat in drivers seat. I then also found it difficult to follow random instructions.

Though I don't qualify as an Aspie (HFA per standard criteria) I found driving to be rather intuitive, as if the skill was already there. It took no more than 3 or 4 practice runs before I was comfortable enough to take control of the wheel. After that I pretty much taught myself the rest by reading visual cues from other drivers. Call it what you want, some kind of alien intelligence or whatever but I kid you not when I say that I'm primarily a self taught driver.

The only problem was with generating some motivation, passing the driving test and the written test. The latter was easy, the former was sheer luck. I was 2 points short of a failing score thanks to a huge mistake, but no regrets here. I've been driving for about a year now, my insurance is cheap, and I'm accident free! Guess having godlike concentration and excellent visual processing helps quite a bit when it comes to driving and who said that autistics can't drive? Prove 'em wrong and keep driving!

Unless you live in a city where you can take public transportation, I see no real excuse for people to not be able to drive by time they're out of high school. Why should parents/other people be responsible for getting you to where you need to go?

I know I'm not the best driver in the world, but I still drive a total of about 2 hours every day. It took me four tries to get my license, but I didn't give up and ended up getting it a month after I turned 16. And I did get into an accident once, but I still drive every day, despite the fact that I occasionally get panic attacks when I'm behind the wheel (it happened sometimes before I had the accident, but for the next year or so after, they were more frequent). It wouldn't be fair to anyone else if they had to drive me around just because I was afraid of having a panic attack or something, since they have their own things to do. I also got a ticket and a couple warnings over the years, but there are plenty of people who have much worse driving records and still consider themselves "good drivers."

I've been driving for 11 years.

They see me ridin they hatin

I'm suprised the police haven't pulled me over though I've driven some right dodgy old bangers in my time. Think they must see my hair at the back and think women driver don't bother.

For someone who's only truly driven only a few times, I'm actually a great driver.

But due to not having access to a car to use during the MVD driving test, or even further practice, I still haven't gotten my license. I had my permit once, but it expired before my parents found time to let me drive much more.

It's not that we're unable to, it just takes many of us longer than normal to be able to handle it. Driving is not a trivial task in itself, plus, people with Asperger's generally have a harder time adapting to a new environment -- in this case, the car and road, and all the morons that come with it.

I didn't get my license until 22. No accidents so far. Haven't even been pulled over, which is strange considering that I generally drive over the speed limit when I can. I've had a cop pass me on two separate occasions when I was going 65 in a 55.

I'm 16, I don't drive. My boyfriend (who is not NT; may have AS) is 17, and he doesn't drive. What's the big rush for everyone else?

As a guy who only a few months ago passed his test its hard to take a an accurate line on this.

I took over 18 months for me to learn to drive - although i did pass my test first go. But this maybee a common problem with people with aspergers due to it took me a while to learn to ride a bicycle etc etc.

Allthough my driving instructor was sympathetic with my aspergers after having a complete and utter mental breakdown during a mock test and i was unable to drive for the rest of that lesson.

Another thing, the bbc did cover a series called autistic driving school and one driver did pass, also it talked a bit about a aspergers driving instructor who uses this to there advantage to hopefully pass there driving tests.

I hope this infromation is of some use.

Wow this discussion makes me feel a lot better. I'm 26 and finally started getting my license this year. I used to play a lot of racing games on the Xbox and I think that helped (though I used to speed a lot). I'd have my license by now if my learners license hadn't expired after 1 year, so I have to go write the written test again tomorrow.

I drive much better in my friend's car than with the instructor, my friend just sits there and unless I do something obviously wrong (like move into the wrong lane), he doesn't say much. The instructor is constantly talking, and the hardest thing is he strikes up these conversations while I'm driving. I can't even cook and keep up with a conversation, much less drive.

I think it's true what people are saying here, that learning to drive is a typical "milestone" among NTs but for me, I grew up in the city with a really good transit system, it costs a lot of $ for lessons, so I figured it wasn't worth it until now. I find now that I'm dating, not being able to drive is looked down upon a lot by guys; also when someone needs you to go park the car while they run in, it's good to actually be legally able to do so lol.

I drive. Although I prefer not to in San Francisco.

hey i drive a stick shift just fine!

I haven't driven a stick shift in a while - well actually I drove my friend's Civic last week. And before that a brand new Subaru with a stick shift.

We only have automatics here, but my parent's Prius is weird in the fact it has an shift-by-wire system. Unlike in conventional cars where there's an mechanical linkage to the shift forks(manuals) or the valve body's manual control valve, the shifter in a Prius sends a CAN(Controller Area Network) signal to both the powertrain control computer and the hybrid system controller, while pressing P on a Prius is a simple electronic signal to engage the parking lock. Other vehicles that use shift-by-wire like the Prius are newer BMWs - but buses have been using electronic shift-by-wire since the 1980s.