Regaining confidence in driving after several years

I used to drive all the time, I never used to give it a thought, it was something I needed to do to get to work every day. I've owned several cars. My first one was a beloved yellow VW Polo which I got in 1983 ATO 148T I think was the registration!

I went through a Datsun Cherry and a Ford Fiesta. My first sporty-ish car was a red Scirocco which ended up being faulty. The bonnet flew up on me at 70mph one day, I was terrified but survived by not panicking, braked smartly but not too hard, I kept the side of the road equidistance and watched whilst rolling to a halt with my hazard lights on, praying there was no-one in front of me. I put the car through an Engineer's inspection and found extensive accident damage which hadn't been repaired properly, the Engineer condemned the car and I got my money back. I'm not sure whether to count that as an accident as I didn't hit anyone else but the car was badly damaged. Both sides of the bonnet where they join onto the chassis were bent back double! Even after that, I still drove around with confidence and it never occurred to me to stop driving.

I loved Sciroccos so much I got another one in silver and then (when both MTM and I were both earning good money), we got a brand new MGF VVC when they first came out, our very first (and only) sports car. The top folded down in good weather and I had a hard top for the winter. It was a beautiful car, the archetypal shiny red sports car and I felt like a million dollars in it.

The MGF was principally my car but MTM used to like to drive it too. As well as transporting me to work every day, we took it on many UK holidays to Northumberland and he would take the wheel whilst we were away.

I had that car for quite a time before I had a series of accidents in quite a short space of time. I skidded in wet weather into the back of someone at a roundabout on a worn out road surface. The pick up truck said I was the third vehicle he'd rescued from the same spot that day. I kinda felt like that wasn't my fault (even though it really was!) I can still feel the sensation of sickening helplessness as the ABS juddered trying to regain traction on the road and then a big bang.

After that, it felt like I was a magnet for accidents. Someone drove into the back of me (not long after I got the car back from the repair shop!) on the A46. Definitely not my fault that one!

Then, after I'd left my full time job and was doing my HNC, I was driving back from college and I ran into the back of someone AGAIN at low speed. I know this time it was definitely my fault, I was in a line of traffic in town, I glanced at my laptop on the passenger seat which looked a bit precarious. I adjusted its position, looking down again for just for a second, in the meantime, the traffic in front of me had stopped because someone several cars further up the line had jammed their brakes on to avoid a piece of metal in the road and ... a bit of a bang, not as dramatic as the first time more of a sudden stop with damaged bumpers thrown in as a bonus.

The worst accident I had was when going to visit my mum and dad on Mother's Day, driving with a big bowl of colesaw in the footwell for a family party.  MTM was going to see his own mother so I was on my own but I was very comfortable being unaccompanied in those days. I was about 20 minutes into the journey, slowing down and then stopping at a roundabout on the A1. I checked my mirror routinely and noticed the car behind wasn't really slowing down, they were going quite fast when their brakes failed. So I saw them coming in the rear view mirror. It all happened quite fast obviously but it felt like time collapsed into a slow motion still-by-still film show as I sat and waited for the impact. When the bang came, it was so big, it pushed my handbraked and immobile car into the car in front of mine. I got a mild whiplash which gave me a sore neck for a few days, coleslaw all over the passenger car mat, a chipped bowl and the MGF was nearly written off.

The lady who was driving the offending car had to go to hospital as a precaution because she was pregnant, we had police sirens, statements .... the whole lot, not just a question of exchanging insurance details and phone numbers this time. MTM turned his car around and came and joined me to await the AA to tow the MGF away.

The repairs took several weeks due to difficulty in obtaining parts. In the meantime, I got a courtesy car from the insurer, I'd only had it a couple of weeks when a Post Office van opened its door on me scraping and gouging awful scratches down all three side panels. At that point, with two cars damaged and off the road simultaneously whilst I was in charge of them, I pretty much gave up driving. I told the insurance company not to bother replacing the courtesy car. I was working from home at the time on my jewellery business, just travelling into Cambridge every Saturday with my sister so I didn't need to get into work every day. I started getting on-line grocery deliveries and anywhere else I had to go, someone chauffeured me. We sold the repaired MGF and I didn't have another car from 2005 onwards.

In the intervening 12 years, I have driven only a handful of times. The single time I was on my own was in MTM's car, I was going to see my mum and dad. Dad was very ill with shingles and mum needed alot of support. Unfortunately, only a mile down the road someone came straight out of a service station right in front of me without looking, causing me to do an emergency stop (good job I remembered how!) I drove the rest of the way to mum and dad's house (a 45 minute journey) with me and Missy, our dog at the time, both of us shaking like a leaf!

When MTM got a company car in April last year, we decided to keep his previous business vehicle, a Mazda, we bought it off the leasing company. We'd had it since new and it was a good car, we knew its history. We decided it would become my car and I would try to overcome my anxiety about driving again.

It would be good for me to have a car again for myself. MTM took me out in it a few times and declared he thought I was safe. I vowed that I would get into driving again so I could be more independent. I especially wanted to be able to go the garden centre and plant nurseries without feeling like I was boring the tears out of him having to go round with me. I used to spend hours in garden centres and nurseries by myself, taking as much time as I wanted. The Manager at Pennells told me I was his best customer!

The Mazda was a really big car compared to my MGF and visibility out of the back wasn't very good, I did go out in it a couple of times with MTM with the idea being I would then start taking it out myself but I never felt safe in it and I couldn't park it at all, it felt far too big for me. I just kept putting it off and consequently, it just languished unused pretty much permanently. When we moved it recently, it had half an inch of leafmould underneath it which I had to scrape off the road!

So we decided to trade it in for another vehicle in a last ditch effort to get me back into driving again. I need something small with good visibility and so we started looking at small cars recently. Last weekend, we came across the perfect one, a Mini Cooper S which is really sporty. MTM test drove it for me and I fell in love with it, it's the first time I have been excited about owning a car since we got the MGF. I had really lost interest in cars completely but now I’m enthusiastic and eager to get out and about in it.

We picked it up yesterday, here I am at the dealer's. MTM drove it out of Nottingham for a few miles past the big, complicated roundabouts and then I drove the rest of the way home, I was a bit nervous joining the A1 but fortunately from the A52, it's a nice long slip road (unlike the one near us) and it went very well. I wasn't too worried because I knew MTM was keeping an eye out for me. So far so good!

I'm shortly to have some driving coaching lessons from an instructor friend in the village, MTM thinks I will take more notice of what he says (!!) Hopefully we'll practice lots of slip roads and parallel parking as those are the things I feel most anxious about. I'm going to do lots of short trips round quiet roads at first. When we're out together with MTM driving, he has started telling me about what he's doing and why. There are lots of defensive driving techniques which I didn't know about. MTM taught driving for five years so he's very good at explaining it.

I am quite excited about it all; wish me luck in getting independently mobile again!