Before we get all “how is this different than Fear of Driving Standard or Fear of Traffic?“, it’s different because those are specific aspects of driving while this is more about operating a vehicle in general. See? Different. Plus it’s an easy way to link multiple posts together and improve time spent on site but you don’t need to know that detail. Fear of Driving is something a lot of people struggle. Pretty scary when you factor in how many cars are on the road at any given moment.
The Long Road to Fear of Driving
Being in a car is great. Feeling the wind (or air conditioning) in your hair. Turning up the volume to enjoy your favourite song. Watching your knuckles turn white as you grip the wheel in intense horror, it’s an all-around great experience. Until you realize you’re basically operating a piece of metal approaching the speed of light. It is your civic duty to dodge pedestrians, confine yourself to little white or yellow lines, and hope the other people operating their own high-speed metal boxes avoid crashing into yours. Driving a car is a lot more than just a wheel and two fancy pedals. Fear of Driving bounds towards you both figuratively and literally. Especially if you’re driving on the wrong side of the road.
Even if you are the greatest driver to ever propel their metal box across pavement, you cannot account for every other person in the world. There are people who drive with their feet out the window. People texting while driving because there is no better time to send that cat gif than while barreling down a highway. Plus the people who cannot comprehend the very definition of a ‘fast lane’ vs a ‘slow lane’ vs a ‘this seems like a good place to park my car without notice’ lane. Your Sunday drive can become a cataclysmic event because of one wrong turn by someone forgetting their car is equipped with signals. Or by one act of road rage by someone who wants to practice their baseball swing with a golf club. Oh or by one squirrel crossing at an inopportune moment because nature.
Speaking of nature, driving during the winter is even worse. Everything you thought you knew about tire traction becomes irrelevant. Knowing conventional wheels were were irrelevant 6 months of the year, scientists literally had to design wheels specifically for surviving snow. Someone needs to start a petition to remove winter as a whole. It’s not crazy if it’s a petition.
Taking a U-Turn on Your Fear of Driving
Cars get you from point A to point B in a relatively easy and affordable way. Ignoring the obvious destruction of cars, they are also great for the environment. Many of our ancestors operated vehicles before the concept of safety was introduced in 1979. Old cars were like hockey goalies playing without a mask. Can we just talk about the latter for a second? Hockey players shoot ice-cold, rubber discs at each other at high speeds. Decades went by before the people responsible for putting their bodies in front of these death traps decided “you know what we should use? Some sort of leather shield to cover our faces”. It would be another couple of decades before someone else realized “you know what’s better than thin leather on our faces? Any other material in the world”. Truly the sport of champions.
Anyway, cars. There are so many things that can go horribly wrong very quickly while driving so having a Fear of Cars makes sense. Often these are factors you, as the driver, can control. There are also sometimes things you, as the passenger, have to just sit there and witness. The good news is no one is forcing you to drive your car. In fact, you could just walk to every one of your destinations. You would only need to worry about being struck by a driver who mistook the concept of ‘right of way’ for meaning ‘I am allowed on the sidewalk’. See? Cars aren’t that bad.
