<p>Has anyone experienced this ? Our youngest daughter has had her license for about two months now. She primarily drives back and forth to school , but we live in an area where traffic increases quite a bit during the tourist season. I know she is not feeling confident about her skills with all of the challenges of navigating the extra cars and aggressive drivers.
It didn’t help that her close friend was in an accident about a week ago that happened because of a wheel flying off a passing car that hit the car she was driving
My daughter is a hyper sensitive girl
I do not want her to develop a driving phobia because she fears getting in an accident</p>
<p>Practice makes perfect. Her confidence will increase as good habits become more automatic. Encourage her to keep driving and have patience with those tourists.</p>
<p>I didn’t get my license until in medical school and needed a car for hospitals (we finally had an automatic and I was home for the summer). I still remember how scared I was to solo the first time in suburbia after getting my license. I had about two weeks before I went back to the big city and faced its traffic. </p>
<p>We worried about son who got his license just before college- age 16- and therefore didn’t do much driving until his post college job. We weren’t there to give advice in winter weather but he did fine and got two years of it before moving. He was a cautious driver once he got his license (we finally decided to relocate the mailbox to the better side of the driveway when he hit it when learning to back out of our tricky sideways downhill driveway early on in the learning process- he did avoid the car parked in the street close to it).</p>
<p>H had an accident on a divided country highway a couple of years ago when a car going the opposite direction lost its wheel and he couldn’t avoid it completely. Nothing to do with experience behind the wheel. Everything to do with the other driver’s lack of car maintenance.</p>
<p>I have chronic extreme anxiety about both kids driving. They themselves, not so much. D has a friend, however, who got into a bad accident and severely fractured her arm when it hit the steering wheel. She still has driving anxiety after a year. And PTSD. </p>
<p>As for your D, if she is anxious, I would take her out at low volume times to practice, and also find other routes if possible for high volume times. Personally, I hate driving on the expressway and often avoid it. It’s taken me years to overcome my issues with driving in a city after growing up in a small town, where we gave the distance between points in miles rather than minutes ;).</p>
<p>I used to be incredibly anxious about driving and what helped the most for me was the 30 minute drive (on major highways) to and from my summer job every day. The best thing she can do is just to keep doing it. I would also recommend that if possible you ride along in the passenger seat for longer rides and on different kinds of roads like highways just so that she can become more comfortable with it.</p>
<p>OP, you can also look into programs like drivers edge… <a href=“http://driversedge.org/”>http://driversedge.org/</a>
Where the kids are given the chance to experience hazardous road conditions in a controlled environment. It may help boost your daughters confidence --and yours in regards to her.</p>
<p>For my Ds’ first six months after getting their license, we had them stay off the expressways and use city streets only. This helped both their and our anxiety levels. Highway driving was a gradual thing, often with DH or I in the car to provide moral support (both girls were a little wary). Eventually we all got comfortable, though all of us stay completely away from a really treacherous highway which is now under massive construction and has daily multiple accidents on it.</p>
<p>We had one <em>very</em> competent driver (it was if he had always known how) and one fairly tentative driver. For the latter, DH blocked off 90 minute blocks for months on end, and they would just go drive for 20 minutes, switch for 10 or stop, and then keep going. It seemed to help build up confidence, and with an adult in the car S2 was less nervous </p>
<p>My son (17 in a few weeks) does not like driving. He’s had his learner’s permit for nearly 2 years and it is about to expire. He hasn’t built up enough driving hours to take the road test and resists most attempts to go out and practice. He is not a terrible driver but he does not see getting a license as an important goal.</p>
<p>My daughter got her license at around 16 and got into a fender bender (her fault) later that same day.</p>
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<p>One of my best friends in high school drove into a neighbor’s fence the same day she got her license. </p>
<p>I also have one bold (too bold?) driver and one very tentative driver. My older D from the day she got her license would drive anywhere and park anywhere. She always drives when the three of us go anywhere. My younger D was in no hurry to drive, would only drive to and from school, would arrive early so she could pull through two spots so she could pull out rather than back out at the end of the day, and never drives unless absolutely necessary. My older D had a car at school, my younger D never will; she has no interest. Go figure. She is a very nervous driver and I figure she will grow into it as necessary. Having GPS helps because I think some of her anxiety comes from not knowing exactly where she is or is going…
Two months is not very long, I think her confidence will grow as she practices and builds confidence and experiences success. </p>
<p>A defensive driving course is invaluable. A good one teaches you how to spot accidents before they happen and what to do when “stuff” happens. Slicks, swerves, sudden stops, chain reactions.</p>
<p>Time on the road and hours clocked is the best thing.
Back road driving is not the same as highway driving–don’t stick to just back roads. I have a friend who HATES the highway–even though it’s safer than city roads accident-wise. And no wonder–she doesn’t keep the right speed, distance, know how to get on and off a ramp safely.</p>
<p>Practice in a relatively “free space”–back roads, no houses, open fields etc. let you do the basic turns, back up, parking, fast stops without worrying about your surroundings. Builds confidence.</p>
<p>Even if a kid has a license doesn’t mean they are a good driver–it takes practice. You want the OTHER driver to feel safe with your kid on the road. I clocked a bunch of very boring miles (some not so boring) with my kids before I turned them loose.</p>
<p>Oh yeah–Look both ways. My H always says “waiting now and being careful will save you unknown amounts of time later on.”</p>
<p>Practice. Practice. Practice. </p>
<p>On sunny days. In the rain. In busy traffic. On empty roads. On the highways. On rush hour residential roads. On back roads. </p>
<p>The experience gained while driving in key. Familiarity breeds comfort. </p>
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This was how my brother and I were. He didn’t enjoy driving that much when he first learned. He took the backroads whenever he could, and if he couldn’t he would have someone drive. I was the opposite. I took to driving fairly well. I was itching to get on the highways. I was always comfortable on the roads. My mom would say I was too comfortable. ;)</p>
<p>She hasn’t driven on the highway yet. She isn’t ready yet IMO. I wish she felt more comfortable , but she has agreed to go out with me and practice some more. I think she does pretty well , and really careful not to speed ( to the point of annoying other drivers when she keeps the speed limit ) I did stress to her to stay on certain roads when traveling back and forth in the beach town , particularly seeking out controlled intersections. We have a lot of roads that have major blind spots because of the street parking. Even difficult for me with an SUV to see oncoming traffic without pulling out past the stop line. </p>
<p>I still worry about my older girls driving too, although neither of them do it often since they live in Boston and rarely drive</p>
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<p>I agree BUT: one can pass the driver’s license exam and NOT be ready to truly be a competent and safe driver. We wanted our kids to stick to city streets while they became more proficient at the act of driving, when they had more time to see and react to what’s going on around them, time you don’t always have at high speeds. Once they got more comfortable and proficient at this, we started practicing on the highways, with a parent present. Eventually they got better and better and we and they felt more comfortable with it. You have to walk before you can run, and imo, a driver’s license does not necessarily mean you are ready to drive the highways. Heck, they don’t get near a highway on their driver’s license test!</p>
<p>As to entering and exiting the highway, it scares the you know what out of me when a driver enters a high speed limit highway going SLOW, inexplicably believing they are being safe, when they are actually extremely DANGEROUS. So frustrating.</p>
<p>Yes, walk before you run. Don’t have her go on highways until she can handle street driving. For highway driving we started on a state road. It took five or ten minutes for me to warm up to the idea of going fast, but once I got to the speed I adjusted. In the same trip, we worked on merging onto a highway. Progressive steps. </p>
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Extremely dangerous. I do not enjoy this either. (It actually made me pretty pissed off for the next five miles.) There was this one time I honestly felt I could’ve died, when I was behind a car entering the highway going 55 MPH. In the right lane there was a semi. The car in front wasn’t going fast enough to merge into the lane and they braked. One of the very few moments I’ve braked and worried I wouldn’t stop fast enough. </p>
<p>One of the biggest cause for accidents on highways is when the drivers aren’t going traveling similar speeds. This is why slower cars need to be in the far right lane to reduce the risk of an incident. </p>
<p>Pro Tip: Move out the way for cars that are going considerably faster. You put yourself at risk when you don’t. </p>
<p>I am surprised she got her license without highway driving. That is part of both drivers ed and the drivers license test in our area. I also highly recommend a defensive driving class. Son did a 4 hour class in addition to regular drivers ed. He loved it and it gave us a higher level of comfort with his driving. It was supposed to get us an extra insurance discount but insurance company says we are getting the max possible. We have the opposite problem. Son is too comfortable driving and wants to make multi-hour trips out of state.</p>
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<p>Take her out driving on the highway very early in the morning (5:30-6 am) before traffic builds. She’ll get more comfortable accelerating from on-ramps and learning the feel of of a fast road. Like you, we live in an area where summer traffic is really terrible, except very early in the morning. That’s what we did to get D ready for the Parkway and Turnpike.</p>
<p>( replied to wrong post sorry )</p>