Driving Anxiety Shakes 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 feel too anxious to drive.

Here are some of the ways in which 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 to make you feel small and incapable.

And if you decide to drive with anxiety, you put your and other people’s lives under threat.

Thus, the only solution left with 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 doesn’t necessarily mean that it is related to your driving.

The source of your anxiety may 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, thus making it difficult for you to focus while driving.

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

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

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

Once you find that cause, you can work on it and remove it to allow 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 do not know 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 be going through your mind.

This destination anxiety may percolate into driving, and you may not spot 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 well.

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

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

It affected you in a way that you started doubting 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 in your memory.

But you have to find a better solution than depending 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 to get appreciated by others.

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

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 the work you were going to accomplish will remain unattended and thus unfulfilled.

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.

Get it serviced promptly and ensure all its parts are in good shape.

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 causes for your driving anxiety and take necessary corrective measures. 

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 recently.

Movies, news, and stories about gruesome accidents are everywhere today.

We have to come across such things frequently.

We may get used to watching or hearing about minor accidents, but the pictures get stuck in our minds when we encounter a significant or fatal accident.

Although we consider ourselves to be mentally strong, these visions do manage to haunt some part of 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.

Thus, do not overthink the fatal accidents you see or hear about daily.

Just know the mistakes of unfortunate drivers and learn what not to do while driving.

It will keep the sudden driving anxiety in check and work in your favor. 

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 are a lot of bad drivers out there.

There are even designated areas with a higher rate of accidents and road rage cases.

You may avoid such areas regularly, but it may only be possible to do so sometimes.

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

When you enter them, you are scared and in an overthinking mode to protect yourself from any collision. 

It causes driving anxiety in you as you become too conscious, watchful, and alert.

It would help to avoid such high accident-prone areas with many imperfect 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 trying to overtake a car.

It will lower your driving anxiety and increase your confidence.

Do not be scared even if a collision happens; you are doing everything right.

Remember not to get involved in road rage.

So, just be calm and sort out things peacefully at all costs.

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 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 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 that carries the memories of that horrific incident functions in strange cycles.

You may feel that you are over that accident, but once in a while, its mental scars do come to the surface.

When this happens, you experience driving anxiety.

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

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

With time, the mental scars of that accident will only vanish one fine day ultimately. 

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 will take at least that long to become how good 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 may not have to learn to drive from scratch, but you do have to brush up on your skills.

After a gap, the harder you try to drive like you used to, the more driving anxiety you will experience.

It’s because, with time, the gap between your expectations and reality has also increased.

So, once you come back from a driving gap, give it some time and do not have unrealistic expectations from yourself.

Become The Best Driver Possible

Finding the actual cause behind developing driving anxiety suddenly 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 learn to drive of the highest quality.

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

On the contrary, when you have anxiety, it should be 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.