To make myself sound slightly less useless…my route to work is about 20 minutes and involves 8 roundabouts, some of which are really tricky, nasty ones. I swear I am the BEST person ever at driving that route
I absolutely slay those roundabouts every time and people often cock them up. But it’s only because I know it really well.
And this is exactly the solution to nearly all of the issues that posters have mentioned on this thread...it's all about familiarity, and feeling comfortable when driving a certain route, or performing a particular manoeuvre.
My final driving instructor (of 3!) was great, we were a similar age, we got on really well, we had the same sense of humour. He used to swear at me if I did something silly, we would laugh at the other learners, I used to look forward to our lessons, even though I was quite often terrified too. But when I was practising the "reversing round a corner" manoeuvre, I could never get it right. He actually said to me "Oh god, you're worse than my missus, lets hope it doesn't come up in your test" (it didn't). I know that he was joking and that he would have been horrified if he thought that I took it to heart, but it was probably around 8-10 years before I really had the confidence to reverse into parking spaces. The first time that I actually reversed around a corner, I hit a bollard, which didn't help!
. Now that I do it regularly, it doesn't bother me and it's much easier to reverse into a car park space, than to have to reverse out of it.
I think the fear of getting lost is a bit of a thing with women in particular. We don't have confidence in our map-reading skills, (after decades of being told that "women can't read maps"
) and we often feel vulnerable in unfamiliar places, especially if we have our children with us. Drivers today can be very aggressive, you only have to hesitate for a second to try to get your bearings, and some
twit in a BMW is beeping at you from behind. Parking can be very difficult in lots of places, having to drive around a unfamiliar area to find a space can be extremely stressful. The Google maps street view is really helpful for planning an unfamiliar route, you can use "landmarks" to help you familiarise yourself with a new area. I've done the sticky label thing too, even when going to my sister's ("get off motorway, turn RIGHT AT ROUNDABOUT"
)
Practise those manoeuvres, plan that route. And just go out and do it. If you have a meltdown, you can just turn around and go home.
mocktheorytest.com
it's still a route I know, but never drove there and I was always a bit afraid of the thing. Sounds sooo stupid, but I think people with driving anxiety understand it. I was ridiculously proud of myself afterward. Talked in my head the entire time about which lane I needed to pick and all that, I also find it really helps.
