After Quarantine, 28% of People Report Feeling Overwhelmed by Driving | Hacker News Reader

After Quarantine, 28% of People Report Feeling Overwhelmed by Driving

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76 pointssharkweek55 comments

"... 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.

Amen. Let us all treat driving like the dangerous activity it is all of the time. Because it is the most dangerous activity most of us ever partake in. If you are maimed or die before the age of 50, a car accident is one of the most likely causes.

EDIT: I would love to know why you downvote this. Genuinely curious.

People probably think calling it the most dangerous ordinary activity is palpably uninformed. Although I wouldn't have made any confident statement without checking.

The Wikipedia page on "Micromort" claims giving birth is equivalent to about two years of driving, and living in NYC during the covid pandemic was equivalent to about one year of driving per day.

Also, bicycling and walking seem to be at least an order of magnitude more dangerous than driving, per km.

Saying if you die before 50, it's likely to involve cars is just another way of saying most other hazards don't kill people before 50, so it could be viewed as a misuse of statistics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

Normally you should do that automatically without additional effort. It is difference between new driver who has to think about everything.

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

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...

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.

I think that's exactly the problem. Some things you cannot let become an automatic / unconscious habit, especially when safety is involved.

There's some good discussion here on the topic. Japan's rail workers point and speak, because it keeps the safety checks in the attentive part of your brain. When things go automatic / unconscious, you tend to miss or gloss over things. This is not what you want while driving.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18952193

Even pilots are taught to point and say their checks out loud during pre-flight. And flying happens to be one of the safest ways to travel.

I think I recall reading this is why teenagers new to driving get in to less accidents than teenagers used to driving - the group new to driving felt they had to pay closer attention compared to the group that was used to driving that would constantly distract themselves.

OMG some people have a snowflake complex .. i drive 4 times a year for super long trips and yes i'm always a bit scared at some point but it's a good fear that make you drive better, and people should treat as a normal thing not a headline-worthy thing

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.

Likewise! It's a huge stress reliever for me. I get to get out of the house but still be isolated from everyone else.

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..

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

Auckland, NZ

Different definition of "driving". This is about the act of driving, the requirement of negotiation a vehicle on a road. This isn't about being overwhelmed about the extent of driving necessary in one's life, but overwhelmed by the mental tasks necessary to do things like merge onto a freeway.

Little sympathy from me. I had to work through lockdown, driving to work nearly every day, including more than half of the weekends.

Yea, the lockdown was incredible. Never any traffic, I loved it.

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.

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

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...

I haven't owned a car for about 8 years, but I use Zipcar rentals about once a month for recreation. The cars are often different models, so every time I drive I have to figure out how to adjust the steering wheel, seats, mirrors and go over the controls. A couple years ago I used Zipcar on a trip to Spain and drove it into France (I'm American). After a month of not being in a car, operating one seems exciting and dangerous.

Car free for a decade!

I think my first time driving through SF’s morning commute to the peninsula was a little harrowing.

But not afterwards.

I zipcar, rental car, or some other one-off service whenever I want and its like riding a bike to me.

Us city slickers should probably pay more for car insurance when we do own a car, instead of less. All the insurance company seed is that we havent had crashes or tickets in years, so therefore we deserve lower rates.

Traffic seems noticeably faster and more aggressive than before.

This cyclist agrees.

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

The Bay Area freeways are so open now that the general flow of traffic in the left lane is over 90. It's kind of nuts, but also kind of nice. Being able to run out for takeout near the airport at dinnertime and not having to worry about traffic has been nice.

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.

God, I hope not. Nobody actually stops at stop signs.

I wonder if the same crowd that refuses to wear a mask has a high overlap with that increase. They tend to stick to old habits (going out unrestricted) and being more self-focused.

A higher percentage of that personality on the road would increase perceived aggressiveness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Go to Egypt, or the mountain roads of Peru, or Brazzaville in the Congo :)

I've driven extensively in those and many, many more, and while the freeways in LA take some getting used to with a vehicle that won't hold 70mph, it's nothing like the freeways of Egypt where lane markings mean zero, or the mountain roads of Peru where buses come around hairpins on your side of the road.

"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

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.

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.

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.

I think it's people feel safer driving faster than they normally would, along with less police presence. Especially when the lockdowns first started, /r/maryland would joke about I-75 doubling as a speed limit (normally it's 55).

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...

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.

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.

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

Driving in traffic is likely an extraordinarily stressful activity.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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