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How to overcome your fear of driving? Our world is arranged in such a way that from childhood, a cautious attitude towards transport is invested, considering it as something dangerous. The constant prohibitions to play next to the roadway, the sharp cries of parents when crossing the street, of course, are due to the desire to save the child's life and to teach safety, but at the same time they invest the fear of vehicles. The problem of how to overcome the fear of driving a beginner needs to start solving while still in driving courses, since most people who graduate from them never get behind the wheel in the future, and the reason is precisely fear, and not the presence of a car or the ability to maintain it.

News feeds and photos of accidents, statistics that airplanes are safer than a passenger car are triggers for the emergence of paralyzing fear, which directs all human actions not to tame technology, but to avoid contact with it. Which of the moments and when will work for you remains a mystery, and for some, fear manifests itself even during training, and someone may suddenly get to know him after a dozen years of successful driving.

Causes of fear

How to overcome your fear of driving? Any fear has reasons and it can be conditionally decomposed into its components, so with the fear of driving, three categories are most weighty:

- fear of getting into an accident (this includes the fear of all possible consequences of the accident, including death, disability, serious injury, survivor's syndrome, material losses, etc.);

- the fear of not coping with the situation includes all aspects of driving a vehicle: fear of stalling at an intersection, inability to drive out in the opposite direction, inability to park or turn into the required lane;

- fear of losing reputation or looking stupid, which includes the fear of minor flaws that are ridiculed in the driving environment (forget to turn on the turn signal, go too slowly, “park like a girl”, etc.).

Most fears are successfully overcome by a person on their own, if you work on it, with the support of loved ones or if you have regular training in driving. But do not forget about difficult cases, not related to the question of how to overcome the fear of driving for a beginner, but having serious traumatic experiences or long-standing events. Such fears are inherent in people who have survived their own accidents or the death of loved ones associated with a car - then work with a psychologist is required aimed at overcoming, and if the fear comes from childhood and its reasons are not logically and consciously understandable, you cannot do without.

How to overcome your fear of driving? Fear usually arises and increases in situations of uncertainty, so the more often you drive, the more familiar and familiar the environment becomes, the less fear level will become each time. If fears are still strong, then investigate the route on which you are going to go - look on the map for turns, traffic lights, signs, parking lots and nearby buildings. It will be a great help to ride the originally chosen new route as a passenger to get acquainted with the route.

When arranging for yourself such workouts, choose the hours when there are the least number of drivers on the roads, usually in the morning hours of weekends, but it all depends on your area, so ensure yourself a relatively calm journey (at least without traffic jams and beeps of nervous drivers). Another secret of ensuring yourself a quieter road is to go to the highway outside the city - there the traffic is less intense, there are no endless turns and traffic lights. On such a road, it is excellent to train and hone your driving skills to automatism. After you have trained your driving skills, you need to train your reaction and switching speed already in urban conditions, which is significantly different from a calm highway driving, where there are only trees around you. Be sure to attach the "student" badge, even if you don't feel like it now and feel ashamed, believe me, it is better temporarily such a sign than a broken bumper. In addition, it will save you from unnecessary reproaches from experienced drivers. Everyone remembers their first trips to the city and the nerves that accompanied it, therefore, beginners are treated with condescension and understanding.

How to overcome your fear of driving? All fears associated with the fear of losing control are not stopped by any affirmations. And it is stupid to use such a method. If you are afraid of losing control or not steering the car along the desired trajectory, then you have gaps in knowledge of theory or practical development of a skill. Accordingly, it is necessary to delve deeper into the study of car mechanics. Ideally, you should be able to fix minor problems on your own or determine a breakdown that requires the intervention of a car service - knowledge at this level automatically removes the fear of losing control, since you begin to understand for sure that all power is in your hands, and the car is not a living animal tamed by you, but having character.

The fear of oncoming traffic is due to insufficient experience and lack of a sense of the dimensions of the car. This condition is more typical for beginners, but it also appears among experienced drivers when changing vehicles. It will help, as usual, training - at the landfill, placing plastic bottles, it will be safer to practice entering the garage than carrying out this procedure with concrete walls.

The aggregate of many fears can give rise to a general fear of provoking an accident, whipping up negative ones. In addition to learning about how a car works and practicing, it's good to deal with your own emotional state before getting behind the wheel. Fear of death and injury is normal, but if only these thoughts are circulating in your head when you drive a car, then due to the increased level of nervousness and tension, you yourself increase the likelihood of error.

How to overcome a newbie woman's fear of driving

The peculiarities of female psychology form the specifics of their driving style, and also teach other approaches, how to overcome the fear of driving a car for a girl. In a state of stress and fear, girls behave and react in different ways, so it is often mistakenly believed that they are more afraid of driving than men. However, the peculiarities of the female body force her with evolutionarily fixed instincts to be slower and more careful, to look around and check more often. So it turns out that where the man has already accelerated to 120 km / h and managed to crash into an oncoming car, the woman, guided by fear, crawls like a turtle, but at the same time safe and sound.

It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of fear and feelings of security, and before figuring out how to overcome the fear of driving, a girl should give her enough time to scan the situation. More often than not, having overcome the first line, women become more successful and professionally quality drivers than men.

You can agree with the instructor about additional classes, increase the frequency of trips from a couple of times a week to daily, or ask your friends. At first, you can train at the training ground, then gradually drive out into the deserted streets of a familiar area early in the morning, then on to the highway and then along the busy city arteries. The important thing to observe is consistency and a gradual increase in complexity. When you notice that you are passing the training course quickly, singing along to songs on the radio or discussing the latest news with an escort, it's time to move on to a new stage. Move at your own pace and repeat the necessary tasks as many times as necessary for your peace of mind, and not as written in the driving school regulations.

Just as you gradually train your driving skills, it is also gradually necessary to prepare yourself for independent driving unaccompanied, since it is this fear that prevents you from driving after graduating from a driving school. For the first time ask someone to accompany you to guide and help, by the way, it may be your own instructor. Then you can take friends with you, but ask them to minimize comments and advice in order to gradually get rid of the addiction. The next stage will be - an independent journey, which can be frightening, and here you can ask someone to ride with you in the car in front of you, and eventually behind you. This gradual transition to self-driving takes more time, but you definitely stay on the road, and not continue to ride the subway.

In the accompanying and instructor choose a person you like, instill confidence and anticipation of the next trip with joyful anticipation. It is better to exclude options when the shouts and constant remarks of the mentor will destroy yours, and from all the lessons you will learn only the one that was not created for riding. The role of those who are nearby and those who teach is incredibly great. Before any trip, tune in to the positive - drink your favorite coffee, listen to a funny song, buy yourself a candy for entering the garage the first time. Surround the driving process with as many accompanying positive emotions as possible and work on.

Also, extreme confidence and freedom are given by courses of extreme and emergency driving, after passing them, driving in an urban environment in a working car will seem to you an easy and exciting ride. By the way, in addition to standard driving schools, there are driving courses for women, where the peculiarities of psychology are taken into account and you will not have to deal with the psychological problems of the first trips on your own.

Fear of driving after an accident

Any road accident is a significant stress for the nervous system, actualizing the existential issues of existence and putting a person directly in the face of possible death. In addition to being aware of our own finiteness, accidents confront us with the lives of others. There can be many ways of development. Someone, having got into even a minimal accident, with their help inflates the problem so much that they no longer sit behind the wheel. Another person, almost losing his life, having escaped with traumas of various levels, will have grounds for real fear for his own life, and someone may survive, but other people will die, and then the guilt for their lives will forever settle in the soul. There are many more examples and they are all different, differing, like people, because there are those who continue to travel further without experiencing fear.

How to overcome your fear of driving? Fear is a normal reaction of the body that performs a preventive and protective function. So its presence is a completely adequate signal that it may be unsafe on the road. This is not a phobia, and having got rid of such fear, you will automatically turn off caution, attentiveness, thereby increasing the level of risk.

When fear arises after a serious accident that claimed lives or caused severe physical injury, then it takes place and leaving it intact, hoping to benefit, can be unsafe. The psyche has gone through a severe shock, previous convictions, which means that it is necessary to replenish mental resources and search for new supports. It is better to turn to a specialist who specializes in crisis situations and knows how to work with psychotrauma - this way the rehabilitation process will be faster and more environmentally friendly.

Survivor syndrome or almost always accompanies drivers who have been in an accident where people have died. Such feelings are very difficult and you can process them on your own for several years, despite the fact that the driver actually acted in the only right way. The recognition of the right to a further free life and the removal of guilt includes multiple measures of rehabilitation, work with psychotrauma, an objective assessment of the situation, which is best done in conjunction with a psychologist.

How to overcome your fear of driving after an accident? The usual advice to get behind the wheel more often and force yourself to practice in this case will only aggravate the injury, since returning to the road will be possible after the person's psycho-emotional state has been leveled. It is better to move around in the car as a passenger, and for as long as necessary. Third-party advice and convictions why it is necessary to get back behind the wheel faster is better to ignore, and to give yourself the opportunity to be in different roles, perhaps the desire to be a driver will never appear in your soul again, then so.

If the life situation is such that it is necessary to return to driving, but there is a fear of a repetition of the accident, then it makes sense to take courses of emergency driving in extreme conditions. They are all focused on improving skills and training the body to respond automatically and correctly in unusual situations. If your fear is connected precisely with the possibility of a repetition of the outcome, then additional knowledge will remove anxiety and give confidence. Return to driving as gradually as you did in the learning stages - first with someone, carefully planning your route, refreshing your head with theoretical knowledge and updated rules.

Speaker of the Medical and Psychological Center "PsychoMed"

Auto makes life easier, "compresses" long distances, helps to keep time around in time. Many people want to enjoy the benefits of automobiles. They take courses, get a license. But these people are relentlessly pursued by the fear of getting into an accident, meeting with impolite traffic police officers, and running into the rudeness of other drivers. Therefore, many are afraid to drive. Fear of driving is not a problem for beginners alone. After severe accidents, an irrational fear of a car appears even among venerable drivers. How to overcome the fear of driving a car, stop being afraid to "saddle the iron horse"?

There are many reasons that give rise to the fear of independent driving:

• in women, the fear of driving is often caused by the stereotype that driving is a man's business;
• Also, the representatives of the fair sex are afraid of constant prompts from benevolent "fellow travelers" - relatives, friends. With such "well-wishers" we will try to travel less. If the instructor is abusing the remarks, we will find another. Who will not only teach you professional techniques, but also tell you how to stop being afraid to drive a car;
• newcomers are especially afraid of sharp remarks, disapproving cries from other drivers. Let's take a philosophical approach to verbal aggression. Let's remember: these clever people also started, and more experienced motorists drove along them;
• fear is also caused by the neurotic information space - news about incidents, terrible stories of relatives about accidents. We shield ourselves from such information, because serious accidents happen, but relatively rarely;
• fear of "getting into a puddle" is another reason why a person avoids a car. He is afraid to park incorrectly, stall, exceed the speed limit, and run into traffic police officers.

We constantly remind ourselves: other drivers are people too. Mistakes with unpleasant embarrassment happen to them too. Many of them at first also experienced uncertainty while driving, fear of driving a car, and studied how to overcome it.

How to quickly overcome the fear of driving a newbie woman

Fear of driving persecutes 90% of novice motorists. In women, the problem appears more often. The stereotypical notions that driving is the lot of men are to blame.

To overcome anxiety, sit in a driver's seat and drive a car, a woman should do the following:

1. We hang a beginner's sign (teapot) on the windshield. Colleagues-drivers will understand: the car is driven by a "salaga", you cannot judge him harshly for mistakes, endow him with a strong word.
2. We conquer the fear of driving gradually. First, we drive a couple of kilometers in quiet places in the early morning, when there are few cars. Private sector roads, country roads are well suited. Gradually we complicate the task. We begin to confidently move along the main city highways at rush hour, to overcome many kilometers of distance between settlements. We act without haste, but regularly. Practice will come, the anxiety will begin to disappear, the fear of driving will go away.
3. We learn to interact with the car, to feel the weight, dimensions. We study the braking distance - we start abruptly, we slow down, we turn around. We practice on uninhabited streets, empty country roads.

When we study our own car, we find out all the features, we begin to understand what to expect from the car. So we will become more confident, we will lose the fear of driving.

How to overcome your fear of driving

Here are some tips on how to overcome your fear of driving:

Exploring the route

We plan the route in advance. Using modern GPS systems, it is not difficult to "draw" the road. We look where the difficult sections are - turns, busy intersections - we internally prepare for possible stress. We will also ask a friend to take a ride along the future route in order to personally see the stressful areas. The fear of driving will be greatly reduced.

Emergency driving

Counter-accident driving lessons are a useful thing for people who avoid cars for fear of getting into an accident. The courses will also help people who have become afraid to drive a car after an accident. Lessons will instill confidence, help improve driving technique.

Companion

We proceed as follows:

1. We take a passenger to feel moral support. It is impossible to take a "strict judge" as a companion. If your husband likes to teach, it is better not to ride with him. Otherwise, self-confidence will become even less. We'd better take patient, indulgent people who will turn a blind eye to road jambs as fellow travelers. It is also reasonable to take a passenger who is a complete layman in driving. This will not get tired of unnecessary valuable advice.
2. The moment will come when you will have to give up your companion, start driving on your own. To avoid a lot of stress, we ask a friend to accompany us in his car. Let him ride alongside (in front or behind) so that we can see a friend in the windshield or rear-view mirror.
3. We put in the salon a reference book for motorists with all the necessary telephones (workshops, repair crews, evacuation services, police departments). We also carry the latest revision of the traffic rules. Better in paper version, to feel more confident, to look more respectable in the eyes of a traffic police inspector. It is easy to get such literature - in bulk online stores.

Remember! If stopped by a policeman, keep cool. We pretend that we have been driving for a long time. Then the traffic police officer will be more tolerant.

Realism

Do not set yourself super-tasks. If you are overwhelmed by the fear of driving, panic overcame, just stop. Even by the side of the road. Just be sure to turn on the emergency gang! Get out of the car, get some fresh air, listen to your favorite song, relax. When the panic has passed, continue on your way.

The importance of positive thinking

Before the trip, we are in a positive mood:

• let's see your favorite sitcom, remember the pleasant;
• visualizations are also helpful. Imagine the driving process in your mind. Nothing bad happens - the traffic policemen "have mercy", we avoid emergencies. We just calmly drive, rebuild, stop in front of pedestrians. We park at the supermarket without incident. We return home without any problems. With this attitude, driving will feel much more confident, we will stop being afraid;
• useful and. We constantly repeat internally: we are professionals, we are akin to a car.

Phobia to drive - treatment is indispensable

Fear and phobia are not synonymous. Fear is simply an inner self-doubt, a wrong attitude. But a phobia is a much more unpleasant thing. It is a neurosis caused by a strong stressful situation from the past. Phobia often appears even in experienced drivers who survived an accident.

She sits deep in the subconscious, without the help of a specialist you cannot get rid of her. He will tell you how not to be afraid to drive.

Working out and hypnosis eliminates the problem especially effectively. The patient describes or writes about the phobia in words. This helps to deeply feel the irrational fear, to defeat it. At the end, the patient tears the sheet apart. This symbolizes the release from the phobia. Working out can be combined with hypnotic suggestion containing instructions on how to stop being afraid to drive.

Freeing yourself from irrational fears will help

How to overcome your fear of driving? Obviously, every driver at a certain stage asked himself this question. After all, the fear of driving is not such a rare occurrence as it might seem. Statistics show that a large number of people who graduate from driving courses never become drivers. And the main reason is not the lack of a vehicle, but the fear that they cannot cope with. The signal “Beware of the car” recorded in the subconscious is triggered every time before a person gets into the car in the driver's seat.

The origins of driving fear

Fear of driving can arise both among experienced drivers and beginners who are just starting to comprehend the basics of driving, and even among those who have never sat behind the wheel because of the paralyzing fear of driving. Personal negative experiences or the stories of loved ones, TV plots or a newspaper article - anything can trigger the fear of driving.

If the person giving the driving lessons constantly scolds or abuses the student, the fear of driving can arise very quickly. It is believed that the fair sex is more likely to experience fear while driving, but this is only partly true. Excitement is present in all novice drivers, only less emotional men overcome it more easily.

What is behind this?

To understand how to overcome your fear of driving, you need to uncover the hidden fears lurking behind it.

As a rule, most often this is hidden behind:

• fear of an accident with all the "safety net" that stems from the emergency (even experienced drivers sometimes fail to completely overcome such fears);
• fear of not coping with the situation;
• fear of “losing face” - to look stupid, funny or ridiculous.

All minor car fears (“I won't be able to park”, “I won't drive away with oncoming traffic,” “I'm afraid to stall at an intersection,” etc.) fit into the above categories.

In fact, this fear is not so difficult to overcome if you purposefully work with your fear. Only in very difficult cases, for example, after serious accidents or deep fears from childhood, may the professional help of a psychologist be needed.

What can you do to get rid of your fear?

1. Practice more often

The more practice, the less fear. This is an axiom. Therefore, get behind the wheel as often as possible, even if there is no particular need for it. As experienced drivers say, confidence will come after the first five thousand kilometers.

2. Explore routes

Before going anywhere, study the route by traveling as a passenger. Look closely at road signs, parking spots, etc. This will help you overcome your fear of driving and feel more relaxed when driving along this route.

3. Use the morning hours

In the early morning on the roads, especially on weekends, the traffic is minimal. This is a great time to practice your driving effortlessly.

Psychologist's advice in a short video:

4. Drive on a suburban highway

If the traffic in the city is too heavy, get used to the car and bring your driving skills on intercity highways to automatism. Frequent trips to the countryside are a great way to overcome your fear of driving and gain hands-on experience.

5. Attach the "Novice Driver" sign

This will, to some extent, protect against conflict situations and aggression. As a rule, experienced drivers treat newcomers with some degree of condescension.

6. Ask for an escort

If there is a fear of being left in the car without an instructor, ask someone close to accompany you. But someday you still have to decide to ride alone. To soften this transition, use a car escort. Let one of your friends move first in front of you, and then behind your car.

7. Find a good mentor

If you feel that the driving school lessons were not enough, find a good instructor and practice as much as you see fit. Experience has shown that a stranger is better suited for this role than someone close to you.

8. Sign up for courses of emergency or extreme driving

Taking these courses not only increases the level of driving skills, but also your inner confidence.

9. Learn the "materiel"

If you have not mastered the rules of the road very well or have already forgotten them, do not be too lazy to delve into the topic again. Knowledge is never superfluous, even if it seems to you that some things do not concern you at all.

10. Use visualization

More often than not, imagine how well and confident you drive your car. Imagine yourself driving a car as a very professional and skillful driver.

11. Tune in to the positive

If you are in a bad mood, try changing the minus to plus before getting into the car. Listen to your favorite music, read anecdotes or immerse yourself in pleasant memories. This little "trick" will help drive out negative thoughts. And when you are in a good mood, it will be much more difficult for the subconscious to "paint" terrible pictures of a future trip behind the wheel of a car.

Enjoy your driving!