
After Quarantine, 28% of People Report Feeling Overwhelmed by Driving - sharkweek
https://www.reviews.com/insurance/car/study-after-months-of-quarantine-28-of-people-now-report-feeling-overwhelmed-and-overstimulated-by-driving/?_thumbnail_id=349597
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olyjohn
"... I had to pay close attention to what all the other cars around me were
doing..."

Jesus H. This is what you should be always doing when you're driving. This is
how driving has always been, but people turn off their brains and pick up the
cell phone. Too bad it only takes people a week to get back to complacency.

~~~
mr_overalls
I think the person probably meant that they had to apply effortful attention
while driving. Due to practice, the process is usually automatic/unconscious.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Is it though, or do you just get complacent?

Like if you don't swivel your head and check for cyclists before opening your
drivers side doors or do the Dutch reach [1], you're still probably not going
to hit a cyclist. Until you do.

[1] [https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/tips-resources/know-
how/du...](https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/tips-resources/know-how/dutch-
reach/)

~~~
watwut
New drivers and much more likely to crash then experienced ones.

Doing these is realiable only if it is matter of habit and you do them
automatically, without thinking about it. If you have to focus on it, you will
forget about it.

Same with evaluating who goes first on intersection without lights. You should
not go through the whole "wait he is from right, but the other is turning ..."
you should look at it and know.

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lawnchair_larry
Total opposite here. Before lockdown, I felt overwhelmed by driving. Having to
do it every day, sitting in deadlock traffic, the general stress of
anticipating everyone else’s movements, timing lane changes in extreme
congestion, etc.

After quarantine, I feel elated driving. I am rarely forced to, traffic is
much lighter, I put on a podcast or audible book, and it has gone from
stressful to relaxing.

~~~
pixelbash
We had a couple of months of that, and now not only is traffic back up to the
same density as before, it also feels like a fair number are driving just a
little bit worse. It could be my imagination though..

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ci5er
Where is it up to the same density. It isn't here (Austin, TX)

~~~
pixelbash
Auckland, NZ

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art4ur
I stopped driving about 6 years ago. I live in a very walkable city and work
from home so I sold my car. The few times I do drive it's now very
overwhelming. I'm just glad to know it's not just me.

~~~
gibolt
Do you use any transit other than legs? Bike, E-bike, public transit, train,
skateboard, scooter...?

~~~
sdenton4
I've never had a drivers license; grew up in st louis, and have lived in
boston, toronto, and now oakland (amongst others). Prior to the shutdown, I
used BART and the ferry for most of the commuting, and bikes for everything
else. I've got a couple cargo bike setups; I find my Brompton folding bike
(with a couple attachment bags) has plenty for weekly grocery trips, and my
older Xtracycle is fantastic for multi-day bike/camping trips or much larger
loads. We pretty regularly do vacation by train with folding bikes as carried
luggage...

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makerofspoons
Traffic seems noticeably faster and more aggressive than before.

~~~
pmiller2
Tell me about it. Traffic volume may be down, but speeds and recklessness seem
to be up, in my experience (Bay Area).

~~~
GloriousKoji
Also the huge amount of flagrant violations. At least one a week there's one
driver that treats a red light like a stop sign.

~~~
pmiller2
God, I hope not. Nobody actually _stops_ at stop signs.

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jedberg
The end of the article is telling for me. It talks about surveys done in Los
Angeles about how people feel when they moved there.

I was born in and learned how to drive in LA. After that, no matter where I
drive is relaxing in comparison.

~~~
ladberg
Totally agree. I learned to drive in LA, then moved to Silicon Valley and
could not stand driving there (a combination of bad drivers and bad traffic
light, intersection, and expressway design). I moved back to LA and it's a
relief, even though it's technically more challenging.

~~~
sickygnar
I'm from the east coast and my wife is from LA. She is anxious on the small,
windy east coast roads where I grew up, where there are lots of blind corners
and narrow lanes. I'm the opposite, I'm overwhelmed by the 8 lane LA freeways.

~~~
otoburb
LA's 405 and 101 interchange is probably one of the worst I've had the misery
of experiencing in North America on a repeat basis.

Gridlock in LA feels objectively more dangerous than being stuck in, say, NYC
city traffic or Toronto's 401.

~~~
jedberg
Yup, did that one all at the time. When it was really bad I tried to take
Sepulveda or one of the canyon roads. They weren't any quicker, but were more
fun!

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caiobegotti
"After about a week of driving somewhat regularly, it felt normal again."

I think that's the key point, unfortunately. After such driving abstinence I
would hope people would be zealous for far longer before defaulting back to
Goofy Motor Mania:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHT1lw3vSI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHT1lw3vSI)

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ian-g
I just moved and then a few weeks later drove 1600 miles roundtrip to visit
family. All total, that's over 90% of the driving I've done since December.

The start was definitely weird, I'd definitely lost some of the skills I had,
but 800 miles of highway was really good for bringing that back - I felt back
to normal after half the drive

I think people will recover quickly, especially if they're doing road trips
over summer.

~~~
ghaff
I haven't been driving _much_. But I have been _consistently_ maybe a couple
hours a week on a mix of roads. It's probably more pronounced with me when I
come back from 3 or 4 weeks overseas where I haven't driven at all.

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frompdx
Anecdotally, it's not so much that I feel overwhelmed by driving as it is that
there seems to be significantly more people driving like maniacs. Or perhaps
there are the same amount of maniacs as usual and less people on the road in
general, making their behavior more apparent.

~~~
lostlogin
Here in New Zealand we like to blame tourists for our poor driving and for
crashes. Now there aren’t any foreign tourists and the stats are just as bad.
[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12347725)

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maerF0x0
anecdotally speed is something you get accustomed to. When I first emerged
after SIP I found that 40MPH felt really fast... I have also noticed after a
day at the track on my motorcycle I cant believe that bikes have to go <100MPH
. Speed truly is acclimated and a skill.

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WarOnPrivacy
I'm been seeing more speeding the last few months (which I am fine with). More
recently thought, I've seen more overly-aggressive driving than I'm used to.
People are speeding up when someone tries to pass, that sort of thing.

I was caught up in a road-rage thing yesterday. As a recovering hothead, I get
being on the bad end. When he was tailgating I accelerated where he'd have
plenty of room to get by. I kept my cool & didn't react when he break-check'd
me. I really was trying to defuse the situation but he couldn't stop
escalating it. It's unusual to have it go past the 1st revenge thing, as long
as I don't react.

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tw600040
I have been working from home last 6 years. And can't agree more about the
overstimulation and feeling overwhelmed by how much is going on every time I
am in an office setting or busy streets

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m3kw9
Driving in traffic is likely an extraordinarily stressful activity.

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GordonS
I've felt a bit like this after just a couple of weeks! One time last year I
parked up at the airport and headed on a business trip for 2 weeks. When I got
back to my car and sat in the driver seat, everything felt strangely alien and
uncomfortable. I really felt like I had to think about what everything was,
where it was, and how to use it. Maybe just me!

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twoquestions
Driving a decently long way after the lockdown was definitely a bit of a trip,
took a minute to get back in the swing of things, but it came back fast.

What is really tiring and overstimulating was going to an outdoor party of
about 12 people. Keeping track of the whole social situation was really
tiring, when before it was no problem at all.

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CodeWriter23
Ah, now I understand why LA freeways are increasingly more frustrating for me.
It was awesome a month ago; 90 in the #1 lane, 80 in the #2 and people who
wanted to go slower kept in #3+. Now these befuddled types don’t know which
lane to be in.

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kdamica
When I first moved to San Francisco, I barely drove for 5 years. When I
started again it felt incredibly dangerous and overwhelming, but it feels
normal again now that I drive more frequently. I think this is normal.

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protomyth
So, the first snow stress also happens with after Quarantine driving. I wonder
if it will follow the same comfort curve?

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alanbernstein
How many people would report feeling overwhelmed by driving normally? I've
always felt as such.

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jerome-jh
After 4 years commuting by bike, I feel over-bored by driving, really.

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tibbydudeza
Well I managed to smash my car in the driveway ... first time in years :(.

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nicolashahn
tl;dr: when you stop doing something you forget how to do it until you
relearn.

~~~
ansn
Exactly, it's an interesting example how quickly our brains can seem to lose
access to skills without actually 'forgetting' them, considering how quickly
people can get pack to normal.

