What is a phobia?

A phobia is an irrational human mechanism that is activated in response to circumstances that contain perceived elements of actual or potential danger. As a result, the subject will often resort to irrational behaviour, the circumstances of which can arise from situations that others find insignificant or otherwise trivial in nature. In some cases the condition can be linked back to a life changing event or experience; an event that can be significant enough to produce a condition known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD).

Driving Phobia

This is not an official, technical or medical term, but one that we use to identify those people who have developed an abnormally high level of anxiety that is associated with driving a vehicle on a road, which is strong enough to be recognised as a severe psychological condition. This can manifest itself as frequent panic attacks, which can be severe enough in their nature to render the subject incapable of dealing with the the stress of driving. PTSD can be a contributory factor, but developing a phobia towards driving through having been through some shocking event is only one of many causes, and actually is the least common.

The symptoms that a phobic driver might experience are those of not feeling in control of their limbs, arms and/or legs turning to jelly, visual distortion, hyperventilating, feeling nausea, feeling dizzy, experiencing the sensation that the car is going to tip over, tingling sensation around the mouth, stomach cramps and generally not feeling in control of your ability to control the vehicle.  This can develop to a fear that causes the belief that they will involuntarily swerve across the road into the path of other vehicle, and although their head is telling them it is dangerous to do that, they still feel their body will actually disobey them and do it. A distorted perspective of responsibility towards fellow road users, or even vehicle passengers, is another common symptom, as phobic driver's may develop an exaggerated level of fear they will cause a crash that will hurt someone else.

For those who suffer from this condition they will find that dealing with the normal routines of everyday life extremely difficult. Feeling embarrassed and foolish they will almost certainly try initially to keep their concerns to themselves through the worry of being ridiculed. Their inability to cope creates even more stress, which then perpetuates further the deterioration in their ability to cope.

Nearly everyone who develops a driving related phobia will go looking for a cause that is connected in some way to driving, roads or vehicles, but often this is very much a case of barking up the wrong tree. Often there will be some driving related incident involved at the beginning of the condition revealing itself, but very often that incident will turn out to be a trigger rather than a cause. Where a perceived life threatening incident is sited as a factor, that incident may not necessarily be life threatening in real terms, but the fact that the incident is perceived as being threatening at the time, this can be enough to cause sufficient stress levels within the mind so as to produce the mental scarring that eventually manifests itself as a phobia.

When a human being experiences, or even witnesses, a life threatening or traumatic incident, particularly where substantial injury is sustained either to themselves or to another, their threat perception level can be hugely exaggerated and intensified. Often referred to as a life-changing event, either at or around the time, that incident may cause a high level of stress and anxiety. Those increased stress levels, sometimes exacerbated by other personal emotional difficulties, can self-perpetuate into a downward spiral of diminishing self-esteem, which then fuels further anxiety and stress, therefore adding to an already worsening condition.

You don't have to go through a life threatening or life-changing event to develop the condition.  Most commonly it will come from a set of personal circumstances, but it will be associated with stress, emotional or task related.  A regular scenario that we see is that of an individual under a great deal of pressure, perhaps through work, having to cope with an illness in the family, particularly if this involves hospital visits, bereavement or other significant loss, financial worries, being subject to emotional or physical abuse, failing/failed personal relationship, or any other circumstance that will fuel and perpetuate personal stress.  Whilst all this is taking place an incident will occur, and which may not be significant in itself, but it will be mark the point where the ability to cope has been lost.

Very often, the individual will react to the loss of the ability to cope by feeling they have under performed in some way; not lived up to their own high level of expectation of their personal performance.  This creates a great sense of failure, which then brings in all the other negative thoughts and emotions that go together to fuel the phobia. Once the pattern is formed it becomes habit, and once the habit is formed, the individual becomes trapped into a cycle of self-doubt and a sense their life is no longer under their own control.

The following is a real life scenario.

“I am 38-years of age and have been driving since I was eighteen. When I was fifteen my parents were involved in a major car accident in which they were both critically injured. Such was the extent of the injury the hospital doctor prepared me, my sister and other members of the family to expect the very worst. It was an extremely stressful time for me. Extended members of the family looked after us, trying to conceal their own worries and to help us through what was a very difficult time. Eventually, and after much time being spent in hospital, my parents pulled through and were later able to resume their normal way of life. I soon got over it all, or so I thought, and life went on with the details of that period being spoken of less and less. I did not display any symptoms of being affected by this traumatic period and just got on with my life.

About a year ago I was involved in a very minor road collision where I was hit from behind on a roundabout by a driver that thought I had pulled away from the junction. I was not injured, apart from some minor neck strain, but since that time I began to develop heightened levels of anxiety whilst driving.

I first noticed it when driving on motorways where I found I was becoming quite stressed. Over a period of time it became worse with my feet on the pedals seemingly wanting to work independently of the rest of my body. I felt that I would involuntarily swerve across the carriageway into other vehicles, or just run off the side of the road. I tried to tell myself that I was being stupid and to get a grip of myself, but found this merely created more stress and was making me worse.

To try and resolve the situation I gave up motorway driving, but quickly found that the symptoms came out when using a dual carriageway. From there it spread to large trunk roads and then any road that I drove along. My fear was that a car may lunge out of a junction and hit me and I became very sensitive to the movement of other vehicles, not trusting them to stay in their own lanes. I also started having thoughts of forgetting how to drive and to partially lose co-ordination in operating the driving controls.

What started as just short periods of anxious thoughts, that I assumed would pass, developed into feelings of high anxiety that have become longer in duration and more intense. Driving long distances used to be quite relaxing, but now I have trouble driving at all, because it just feels too fast and too stressful. I end up feeling like I will lose control of the car any moment. Driving at night is also difficult, which I put down to the restricted vision, making me feel even worse about myself.

The symptoms have added a lot of stress to my every day life pattern. I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve my high expectations of being able to drive normally, but the driving issues seem to have now reached an all time high and to the point where I have experienced such severe panic attacks that I have had to pull over, sometimes just barely being able to make it home.

I now get someone else to drive for me, but I desperately want to eradicate this fear that seems to have taken over my whole life. All I want to be able to do is to simply drive to work!”

Dealing With PTSD

It is estimated that up to 1 in 10 people will develop PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) at some stage in their lives, and for some this will affect their ability to drive a motor vehicle.

Some of the most common symptoms of PTSD are:

• Distressing and recurring thoughts, memories, images, dreams, or flashbacks of the trauma.
  
  
• Attempts to avoid thoughts, conversations, places, people, activities or anything that may trigger memories of the incident through fear of becoming stressed or anxious.
  
  
• Feeling emotionally 'numb' and feeling 'detached' from others.
  
  
• A pessimistic outlook on life.
  
  
• Loss of interest in activities that used to be enjoyable and difficulty to plan for the future.
  
  
• Increased anxiety over what others may perceive as trivial, which may have not been present before the trauma. This may include difficulty in sleeping, irritability including angry outbursts, lack of the ability to concentrate and heightened levels of awareness and threat perception.
  
  

Whilst it is normal to feel upset straight after the event for many people the distress gradually eases with the passing of time. In the case where an individual is suffering from the effects of PTSD those feelings of distress and other symptoms will persist more long-term and may even intensify. This can develop into a phobic condition and which is centred around the subject matter at the root of the condition.

Road collisions involve more than just damaged vehicles, they involves people’s lives, and whilst vehicles can be repaired or replaced, and physical injuries become healed or reconciled, it is the mental injury that will often be the more difficult to deal with, as problems within the mind be unnoticed, and with the effects remaining dormant for many years.

Treatment

The standard range of treatments for PTSD is varied and can include,

• Counselling, where a psychologist will help to put fears and concerns into a more logical perspective through periods of discussion and reasoning.
  
  
• Cognitive therapy, which is where changes in behaviour are encouraged through repetitive practical exercises.
  
  
• Group therapy, where individuals with similar problems are brought together to discuss them with each other, thus reinforcing the feeling that they are not alone with their fears.
  
  
• Medication, such as a form of anti-depressant such as SSRI’s (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors), which are designed to ease the level anxiety and so assist in the ability to deal with the underlying issues more effectively, and beta-blockers that surpress the instintive human reapose to fear. These methods are often used in conjunction with other forms of treatment, such as those listed above.

Can We Help?

At Ride Drive we have a team of dedicated people who have developed specialist skills in helping those suffering from heightened anxiety towards driving, whether that be caused by the after effects of being involved in a traumatic incident, such as road collisions, or otherwise. As police officers, especially those performing the role of traffic patrol, our team became all to accustomed to dealing with traumatic incidents that occur in a road environment, and almost on a daily basis. As a result they are trained to a high standard to deal with the emotional termoil that usually consumes those who are affected by such incidents.

The need to be able to give support to help those whose lives are affected by a trauma incident is recognised by the police service as a very important issue. Often the officer dealing with the accident case will find him/herself having to console and comfort grieving families and friends, helping them through what is a time of crisis – a role they inherit by default due to the high level of contact necessary to complete the investigation. To help them perform this role effectively, selected individuals known as Family Liaison Officers (FLO’s) are on hand. These people are specially trained to deal with people who are sufferring froma high level of emotional stress, such as when a loved one is lost. Even if the incident does not involve a death, collisions that cause life-changing physical injury can also have a devestating effect on those directly, or even indirectly involved, and it is important that everyone’s emotional needs are catered for.

All members of the Ride Drive team are trained as advanced police drivers, and many have also been trained as FLO’s. This means they are superbly equipped to assist those who suffer from psychological barriers that have left them with driving difficulties, as well as having the specilaist driving skills to help the customer cope more effectively with driving on the public road.

It is also recognised that not all phobic reaction cases come about through a driving related incident.  In fact, in our experience, very few of them are.  More often than not, a phobic condition that affects the ability to drive has more to do with personal perception, personality, background and character.  Whatever is at the root of it, the phobia is like a barometer, the reading on which is directly proportionate to your sense of well-being.


Our Driver Rehabilitation Programme

Stage-one – We will give you a free initial telephone consultation to make an initial assessment as to whether practical therapy provided by us would be appropriate.

Stage-two – Consists of a meeting, which may begin in your own familiar environment, such as your home address, where you will have the opportunity to discuss your particular concerns. The information from this will help us to formulate an action plan for dealing with those issues that effect you. It may or may not be appropriate during this session to perform any practical driving activities, but this will be decided upon at the time.

Not only is this first session an opportunity for us to assess the issues that you face and to determine if we are the most appropriate body to deal with you, but it is also your opportunity to make a practical assessment of us.  We want you to be happy and totally comfortable with what we do with you and so we need to know that all is well before we progress to the next stage.

We allow a maximum period of 4-hours for this session, but don’t worry, you don’t have to make it last the full term.  We have a set fee for this and it is designed that way to stop you having to think about watching the clock.  During the initial session we don’t just watch you driving around, we get straight in and begin to work at solving the issues that you have.  After all, we do need to see how you respond to our input as much as we need to see the nature of your difficulty.

Stage-three – Consists of following an action plan, as determined by what we have witnessed and experienced at stage-two above, which in most cases will involve periods of practical driving therapy, the effectiveness of which will be constantly monitored and reviewed.

Please note that we appreciate that it is essential to be very careful when encroaching upon the territory of those involved in the treatment for mental health issues. Also, it is vital not to assume to create the impression to have the cure-all solution to everyone’s individual problems, because this I simply is not the case. We advise anyone who’s ability to drive is affected by PTSD, or who believes they have a phobia of driving, to seek advice from their GP before embarking upon any driver rehabilitation programme.

Above anything else we will be totally honest with you. If we do not think that we are the appropriate organisation to assist you then we will be big enough to tell you. Also, we will not keep you coming back unnecessarily and spending more money than you need to. Whilst we have enjoyed some spectacular success in this fieldof work, we do readily accept that we do not have all the answers to everyone’s problems and as such cannot give any guarantee of a successful outcome.

If you don’t feel you are ready to let us talk to you, you may wish to consider joining our Driving Phobia website forum where you can read discussion threads posted by people who are in much the same situation as yourself. You can even contribute with questions, or by posting your own story if you wish. All you have to do apply for access to the pages by going through a simple registration procedure. Just click on the appropriate link on this this page, whereupon you will be taken to the beginning of the logging in process. This facility is totally free to use and has no strings attached.