intense fear of driving

Hello. I'm 24 years old and have a anxiety disorder called ocd. If you
have seen on tv or maybe the movie aviator some people have a intense
fear of germs. In my case its driving.

I was so fearful of driving that I didnt start until I was 18 and then
only 6 minutes to work and back or the local store. I'm driving a lot
more now but instead of being comforted I am bothered even more.

There was a time I made a left turn right in front of someone. I was
watching the road both ways while they slipped out from a parking lot in
just a blink of a eye. Even this situation made me feel unfit to drive.
since then I almost never make a left turn unless its absolutely required.

Also a while back my girlfriend pressured me to driving her to work
while we stayed in chicago. I was in no way ready to drive there and
should have refused. In the blinding sun I ended up going right through
a red light, one of my biggest fears. thankfully again no one was hurt.

My current fear is running this light where I have to cross a highway on
my way to work. There are service roads along the highway so you have to
watch for 2 lights to become green. I work nights and on monday morning
I go in at 330am. Some monday mornings are just downright painful to
keep my eyes open.

I have a terrible fear of falling asleep and running through this light.
We normally go in at 10pm and for a while I was in the habit of driving
home at 330am for lunch which just made me dead tired. Since then I just
stay in the parking lot at work and I feel a little safer.

I also have a fear of getting confused and running this light. If you've
ever had days of "brain cloud" or whatever you call where your mind is
so anxious you know what I mean. I mean how do I know anyone or myself
couldnt run this thing and hit me.

If I was t-boned by a semi coming down the road at 55mph it would probly
be instant death or long and painfull death. On the plus side I always
wear a seat belt but dont know if it would help much in this situation.

I have looked online and sickened to see 40,000 plus people die every
year. thats over 400,000 people in 10 years! Its like a war with mass
casualties yet people give it no thoughts. I look at cars like a coffin
with wheels.

I drive a 95 s-10 and was curious how safe a light truck like that is? i
dont really need a truck and was wondering if I should look into another
vehicle?

anyway thanks for reading all of this. this is serious question and
really how I feel about driving so if your going to make fun hold it to
yourself.

thanks

Jim wrote:
>
> I have looked online and sickened to see 40,000 plus people die every
> year. thats over 400,000 people in 10 years! Its like a war with mass
> casualties yet people give it no thoughts. I look at cars like a coffin
> with wheels.
>

Yup - that's like another 9-11 attack every MONTH!!! And we could do
something about these highway terrorists since they are us. And it
wouldn't cost a thing, in fact it would save billions of $ every month
if people would just drive slowly and carefully. Insane.

Jim wrote:
> Hello. I'm 24 years old and have a anxiety disorder called ocd.

AFAIK, ocd stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. What you describe
in the rest of your post is more along the lines of a phobia. See a
psychiatrist or psychologist if you're able. If you cannot concentrate
on your driving due to excessive anxiety, then try using mass transit
until you have a greater degree of control over your phobia.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Jim wrote:

> Hello. I'm 24 years old and have a anxiety disorder called ocd. If you
> have seen on tv or maybe the movie aviator some people have a intense
> fear of germs. In my case its driving.

<snip examples>

A fearful driver cannot be a safe one. Fearful people tend to act on
impulse rather than thinking things through. They tend to get easily
confused and "wound up", leaving them unable to make the closely
sequential rapid and sound decisions needed to drive safely. You also
state that you drive on inadequate sleep, which is extremely dangerous
even if one isn't abnormally fearful. I strongly suggest you simply choose
not to drive until such time as you find a treatment for the cause of your
fear, rather than its symptoms.

> I look at cars like a coffin with wheels.

I've got someone in my family like that. He happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time too many times while he was a little kid, and saw
six or seven really gory, gross car crashes -- not including the time his
dog was sent flying through the air and into the path of another vehicle,
right in front of his eyes, when an inattentive driver jumped the curb.
Cars to him are ugly death-machines (trucks less so; he never saw a truck
crash, and motorcycles even less so; he never saw a motorcycle crash
either...so you can see this doesn't correlate with real-world safety at
all). His solution? He simply doesn't drive.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:15:25 +0000, Jim wrote:

> I was so fearful of driving that I didnt start until I was 18 and then
> only 6 minutes to work and back or the local store. I'm driving a lot more
> now but instead of being comforted I am bothered even more.

If your fear is interfering with your driving you shouldn't drive. Plain
and simple.

> There was a time I made a left turn right in front of someone. I was
> watching the road both ways while they slipped out from a parking lot in
> just a blink of a eye. Even this situation made me feel unfit to drive.
> since then I almost never make a left turn unless its absolutely required.

Apparently your fear _is_ interfering with your driving.

> I drive a 95 s-10 and was curious how safe a light truck like that is? i
> dont really need a truck and was wondering if I should look into another
> vehicle?

Train, bus, taxicab.

> anyway thanks for reading all of this. this is serious question and really
> how I feel about driving so if your going to make fun hold it to yourself.

I am not trying to make fun of anyone. I am sorry to hear you have a
condition that influences your driving like that. Nevertheless you are
endangering others through your irrational fears and the associated
problems with handling a motor vehicle safely.

If your condition is treatable, get it treated. But whether it is
treatable or not you should not drive while the condition persists. You
are horrified by 40000 deaths on the road per year, so you should stop
contributing to the danger on the road.

Chris

Around 6/28/2005 12:15 PM, Jim wrote:

> I have looked online and sickened to see 40,000 plus people die every
> year. thats over 400,000 people in 10 years!

That's actually not much, given how much we Americans drive. The NHTSA's
FARS front page places the fatality rate at 1.48 fatalities per
100,000,000 vehicle miles traveled (2003), and that's the lowest it has
been roughly since the advent of the automobile.


> I drive a 95 s-10 and was curious how safe a light truck like that is?

Not very.

> i
> dont really need a truck and was wondering if I should look into another
> vehicle?

How about a nice Cannondale? A Schwinn, perhaps?

In any case, avoid SUVs and any other kind of trucks like the plague.


> anyway thanks for reading all of this. this is serious question and
> really how I feel about driving so if your going to make fun hold it to
> yourself.

No making fun, but I do think you should seriously consider not driving
at all. Virtually everyone drives at a speed they feel is comfortable
for conditions; it sounds like the speed you're most comfortable with is
a walking pace.


--
~/Garth |"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie.
Almgren | I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave.
******* | And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."
for secure mail info) --H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:15:25 GMT, Jim , said the following in
rec.autos.driving...

> Hello. I'm 24 years old and have a anxiety disorder called ocd. If you
> have seen on tv or maybe the movie aviator some people have a intense
> fear of germs. In my case its driving.

<snip>

First point: anything that someone called "laura bush murdered her
boyfriend," says should be treated as the garbage that it is and ignored.

Second: It sounds like these fears are interfering with your ability to
safely drive and are putting other road users at unnecessary risk. I'd
suggest you look into an alternate form of transportation untill you can
see a psychologist (or similar professional) to adress (and hopefully
help you overcome) your fears.

> I have looked online and sickened to see 40,000 plus people die every
> year. thats over 400,000 people in 10 years! Its like a war with mass
> casualties yet people give it no thoughts. I look at cars like a coffin
> with wheels.

And how many more die each year from heart disease? Should we outlaw red
meat too? Something you need to come to grips with: we are all going to
die eventually. Death is on your calendar and you can't do a thing about
it.

> I drive a 95 s-10 and was curious how safe a light truck like that is? i
> dont really need a truck and was wondering if I should look into another
> vehicle?

IIRC, most of these light trucks have a roll-over problem (not sure if
the S-10 is one of them), so you might want to consider sonething that
has a lower center of gravity.

--
Paul

Self-appointed unofficial overseer of kooks
and trolls in rec.autos.driving.

In article <hlhwe.98595$_o.89426@attbi_s71>, Jim wrote:
> I was so fearful of driving that I didnt start until I was 18 and then
> only 6 minutes to work and back or the local store. I'm driving a lot
> more now but instead of being comforted I am bothered even more.

You have to lose the fear. I wasn't comfortable driving as a teenager, but by the
time I was 20 or so I had become used to chicago's cruicible of bad driving, the
Dan Ryan Expressway.

I started driving using only smaller, slower roads and when traffic was light on
other roads. However I didn't have this fog you speak of or the metal problems. I
lacked practice and that is what made me not like to drive. I knew driver's ed had
not taught me a damn thing about how to drive. Slowly I gained that practice.

Maybe that is what you really need. I would suggest a driving school, not a
driver's ed school, but a real driving school where you go out on a track and push
a car to it's limits. There are several but they cost money. This is what I should
have done, it would have helped me much earlier. Another choice would be to look
up your local SCCA chapter and see if they have an autocross course.

Anyway my idea here is one of increasing the skills you have in controling the car.
Once with that in place, it should be easier to concentrate on the task of dealing
with traffic, signal lights, etc.

Another thing that may help in driving, with regards to traffic, signal lights, etc
is bicycling in a vehicular manner. Much of my skill driving in traffic was
developed while bicycling.

BTW, I also note that you mentioned missing a red light in chicago. Many of the
signal lights, stop signs, etc in chicago proper are very poorly placed. There is
one particular nonsenically located light that I have technically gone through because
it is invisible to me in my car. The angle of the road and my sightline out the
top of my windshield make the light itself hard to see (not even visible
unless I ducked my head down and looked up) combined with the fact that this T
intersection is in the middle of a bridge where one doesn't expect an intersection
and well... I caught it just in time as I saw traffic coming from the
other way ended up stopping ahead of the stop line but out of the way.

Just this past weekend I stopped at an intersection where I *remembered* a stop
sign being there. It was totally obscured by a tree, other signs, light pole, etc
now. I only stopped because I remembered it being there. It wasn't visible until I
was *at* the stop line.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:15:25 GMT, Jim > wrote:

>Hello. I'm 24 years old and have a anxiety disorder called ocd. If you
>have seen on tv or maybe the movie aviator some people have a intense
>fear of germs. In my case its driving.

Do what I do: walk, ride a bike, take a bus or train.

You don't NEED to drive everywhere.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Garth Almgren wrote:

> > I have looked online and sickened to see 40,000 plus people die every
> > year. thats over 400,000 people in 10 years!
>
> That's actually not much, given how much we Americans drive. The NHTSA's
> FARS front page places the fatality rate at 1.48 fatalities per
> 100,000,000 vehicle miles traveled (2003), and that's the lowest it has
> been roughly since the advent of the automobile.

....nevertheless, despite all the baseless "We're number one!"
chestpounding, the US is only 10th-best and 16th-best in the world in
deaths per vehicle-distance travelled and per vehicle registered,
respectively (www.scienceservingsociety.com).