Driving Anxiety Can Shake Your Confidence

Are you grappling with the question, ‘Why do I have driving anxiety all of a sudden?’

Driving anxiety can make your life miserable and thus requires immediate attention.

Let’s find out how we can deal with it.

Driving is a great skill to have.

It gives you the confidence to go out and reach the destination of your choice.

Driving is also a social interaction that happens on the road every day.

It teaches you to communicate silently with other vehicles, manage them, and steer through them.

In summary, driving is a skill that improves your personality and life.

But driving may not always be a “smooth ride.”

Driving is a game of confidence, and little things may shake this confidence.

And when your driving confidence gets shaken, you might feel too anxious to drive.

Here are some ways driving anxiety affects you on the road.

When you experience driving anxiety, you start wondering why you developed driving anxiety.

If you choose not to drive, it curtails your personal and mental freedom, making you feel small and incapable.

And if you decide to drive with anxiety, you put your life and other people’s lives at risk.

Thus, the only solution left to you is to find the exact reason behind your driving anxiety and overcome it.

So, let’s find out the possible reasons for developing sudden driving anxiety. 

Why Do I Have Driving Anxiety All Of A Sudden

There are eight possible reasons behind experiencing a high level of anxiety while driving. 

An External Source of Anxiety Has Spread To Your Driving

The first possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is an external source of anxiety that has spread to driving.

Driving anxiety may not necessarily mean that it is related to your driving.

The source of your anxiety can be something else in your life.

It may be a stressful situation at work or a difficult conversation that is about to happen in your relationship.

These anxiety sources may have made your mind unsteady or worrisome, thus making it difficult for you to focus while driving.

In such a situation, working on your driving anxiety may not be wise, and it may not yield the expected results.

It will only waste your time & effort, thus raising your frustration and anxiety levels.

What you need to do is think deeply and get hold of the actual cause of your anxiety. 

Once you identify the cause, you can work on it and remove it, allowing yourself to drive like a pro once again.

You Are Anxious About The Destination You Are Driving To

The second possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is that you are anxious about the destination you are driving to.

We often have to go to places we do not want to go.

We may be uninterested, scared, or unsure of how to behave in a particular place.

For example, you may be anxious if you are socially awkward but have to visit a family friend’s house formally.

While on the way, many anxious thoughts might go through your mind.

This destination anxiety may manifest in driving, and you may not recognize the reason.

You may feel that it’s driving anxiety, but in reality, it’s destination anxiety.

If destination anxiety bothers you, you can opt out of driving to that destination.

Instead, take a friend or sibling who can drive you there.

It will also give you the time to prepare mentally for the destination you are going to.

Someone Told You That You Are Not A Good Driver

The third possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is that someone told you that you do not drive too well.

If you are a sensitive person who gets deeply affected by people’s negative opinions about you, your driving anxiety may be a result of such views about your driving.

It’s possible that someone, especially someone close to you whom you trust a lot, gave you negative feedback about your driving.

It affected you in a way that you began to doubt your driving.

The negative review about your driving may still be fresh in your mind, which could be troubling you while driving.

With time, the driving anxiety will reduce as the negative feedback fades from your memory.

However, you need to find a better solution than relying solely on time.

What if you face such negative feedback about your driving every day?

You have to find a way not to get bothered by people’s negative feedback or opinions about your driving.

The way out is to have a more balanced approach to life.

Stop expecting or enjoying people’s compliments about your driving. 

Because you get affected by people’s compliments, you also get affected by their negative feedback.

Have confidence in your driving skills, and do not drive for the appreciation of others.

With this balanced approach to your driving skills, you won’t feel anxious if somebody gives you negative feedback about your driving.

You Have Safety Concerns Regarding Your Car

The fourth possible reason behind sudden driving anxiety is safety concerns about your car.

If you know that you serviced your car a long time ago, you are likely to experience driving anxiety for two reasons.

First, you may fear your car experiencing a breakdown, which could leave you stranded midway.

You will have to endure many hassles to get the car repaired, and you might not reach your destination on time.

Secondly, sitting in an unsafe car may make you scared.

If you serviced the car long ago, it could mean that some of its essential parts may fail at any moment, which could threaten your life.

Thus, you must ensure your car is in the best possible state whenever you drive it.

Have it serviced promptly and ensure all its parts are in good working condition.

Safe driving is also an essential factor that will add to your and your car’s safety while driving.

Here is an exhaustive list of concerns that might trigger driving anxiety.

You can check each one of these possible causes for your driving anxiety and take the necessary corrective measures for the actual cause. 

Your driving anxiety will vanish when you have put the safety concerns to rest.

You Have Watched Or Heard About Fatal Accidents Recently

The fifth possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is that you have watched or heard about fatal accidents on the road recently.

Movies, news, and stories about gruesome accidents are everywhere today in the age of the digital revolution and social media.

We often encounter such things, even if we may not want to.

We may become accustomed to watching or hearing about minor accidents, but the images might linger in our minds when we encounter a significant or fatal one.

Although we consider ourselves to be mentally strong, these visions might still come back to haunt us.

It might give rise to driving anxiety within us.

As a result, we may become over-conscious while driving to keep ourselves safe.

The mental pictures of accidents can benefit us if we can control them and not let them affect us too much.

They will help us learn valuable driving lessons from other accidents and keep ourselves safe.

So, please don’t think too much about the fatal accidents you see or hear about in your daily life.

Be aware of the mistakes made by unfortunate drivers and learn what not to do while driving.

It will keep the sudden driving anxiety in check for you. 

You Are Driving In An Area Of Bad Drivers

The sixth possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is driving in an area with a bad reputation for drivers.

You may be a good driver, but you can still get involved in car collisions and road rage cases.

It’s because there may be a lot of bad drivers on the road.

There are even designated areas with a higher rate of accidents and mishaps.

You should avoid such areas, but it may not be possible to do so every time.

Several compulsions, like a lack of time, may occasionally force you to enter such areas.

When you enter them, you might be scared or overthink to protect yourself from any untoward incident. 

It might cause driving anxiety in you as you become overly conscious or watchful.

It would be helpful to avoid such high-accident-prone areas with many inexperienced drivers.

When you can’t avoid them, you should diligently stick to the basics of driving, such as driving slowly, following all possible traffic rules, staying in your lane, and not going out of the way to overtake a car.

Mental clarity about how to drive in such areas will lower your driving anxiety and increase your confidence.

Your Memory Of A Recent Accident Is Still Fresh In Your Mind

The seventh possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety can be that the memory of a recent collision involving your car is still fresh in your mind.

When you have an accident or get involved in a car collision, it affects you deeply.

All your driving confidence shatters, and you may start feeling like an amateur.

Over time, you muster the courage, gather the broken pieces of your confidence, and start driving again.

Slowly, you start moving towards normalcy to the extent where you start feeling that you have fully recovered from the mental scars of the accident.

But suddenly, one day, you experience driving anxiety.

It happens because the mind still carries the memory of that horrific incident, which may resurface at times.

The solution is not to read too much into such isolated flashbacks of a past accident.

Be more alert while driving and see this small, mentally turbulent phase through.

With time, the mental scars of that accident will fade away. 

You Are Driving After A Long Gap

The eighth and final possible reason behind having sudden driving anxiety is that you are driving after a long gap.

People think that once you have learned to drive, it’s for life.

Well, it is for life, but if you have stayed away from driving for some time, it might take at least that long to become as good as you used to be.

You cannot stay away from driving for a year and, on the first day, expect yourself to drive precisely how you did a year ago.

You don’t need to learn driving from scratch, but you do have to brush up on your skills.

When you drive after a long gap, the harder you try to drive like you used to, the more driving anxiety you might experience.

So, give it some time and do not have unrealistic expectations of yourself.

You might initially feel like an amateur, but slowly but surely, the driving anxiety will reduce.

Become The Best Driver Possible

Finding the actual cause behind the sudden development of driving anxiety is essential.

There can be many possible triggers to sudden driving anxiety, and you may not be able to pinpoint the exact reason every single time.

One foolproof solution for all these causes is to become a high-quality driver.

Learn to drive so well that no internal or external situation can trigger anxiety in any way.

On the contrary, when you have anxiety, it gets released when you start driving.

This way, you will free yourself of driving anxiety forever, and driving will become one of your favorite stress-busters.

And when you are free from all the anxiety and stress, the bright sun of your self-love shall rise again within you.

Before diving into the FAQs, here is a simple visual depiction of the relationship between driving anxiety and confidence.

You can see where you fall on the scale.