Visual cues. | ADHD Information
I am glad to see that I am not alone in the distractions while driving thing . .. My mind works at light speed, thus a lull in the action, i.e. driving home
lends to, well LOL who knows where we go.
Everyone tells me they see me, here or there, but I see no one when I drive,
or I just do not notice others I know on the road. It is auto pilot, same road,
same trip year after year after year . . .UPWings- same thing with me. Yeah, me2. So what do you think other people think a/b while they're driving?
Mile long bridge, mile long bridge, mile long bridge?
I used to listen to talk radio, but it was too slow and boring. Ya know what they're gonna say, b/c it's all been said already. Nothing new under the sun.
So I installed a computer in my car, and work on it during the drive. I have to drive slower, but I get there faster... My! time flies when your having fun!
Ok, so it's not just me?
I have a ton of problems with driving that I'm trying to learn how to get around..
1. time/space distortion. I can't drive slow on long stretches of road with no one in front of me. I need a pace car of some sort or I start getting really uncomfortable (crawling out of my skin need for speed style). Short distances seem insanely long, long distances might fly by.
2. Loud, familiar music helps a great deal with the drive, unfamiliar music makes me edgy and nauseous, as does any music I deem to be 'crap' (aka music my wife likes).
3. Missing a turn. I do it about as often as anyone with ADD, except if I miss a turn I have turn paralysis for about a mile - for some reason I cannot prepare my brain to take a convenient turn on the next street to turn around but instead drive for 10 minutes looking for a PERFECT (read: huge, untrafficed, with no one behind me) place to turn around. I hate this one most of all.
4. I drive better medicated, but sometimes overfocus on one potential threat at the cost of missing another.
5. I drive in Boston, MA, home of the Masshole driver. I drive the busiest stretches in the state in my commute. Everyone drives like they have ADD so in response I drive like I'm two mutant ADD suffering midgets on an orange crate drinking draino and smoking PCP. So I tend to commute at 5am or 11am (for my 9am - 5pm office job).
If I do get stuck in a normal commute (like today) I basically lose my entire day as the experience just blows one of my ADD gaskets and Im nervous and stressed out as hell. 2 hour commutes suck. 2 hour commutes with your gaslight on after the first 20 minutes really sucks.
There are other things I hate about driving and travel in general (like being insanely inefficient - not fuelwise, but having to physically move your body through space and time 3 dimensionally, and dangerous)
My dh says the light has been there for about 2 months. Hope I just never caught it red before
[QUOTE=Davidornado]Don't you just hate it when they put new trees in the road at night? Once they moved an entire freeway just to laugh at me... [/QUOTE]
They do the same thing to me. Sometimes, they will leave the road alone but move the mall or the office building or the airport. I HATE it when they move the airport!
One time I was way late picking my hubby up at the airport because they turned it completely around.
A maintaince guy very nicely finally let me drive across the restricted area to get to the other side where they loaded and unloaded passengers. 
What a dear!
I'm sure he felt sorry for me because they had turned the airport around, so everything was bass ackward!
I use a GPS device. It's so fascinating right now, that I pay fair attention to it. However, I've already caught myself missing turns b/c of the cell phone.
It has this annoying voice that says things like,
your turn is approaching in 60 seconds.
your turn is approaching in 30 seconds.
your turn is approaching in 10 seconds.
your turn is approaching in 60 seconds, b/c you missed your last turn, you idiot!
So normally I turn it off. If I'm in a distractive (e.g. new) environment, I'll turn the "Voice" back on.
A danger has been that I downloaded Google Earth, and track along with visual stimuli while I'm driving and navigating. I've been honked a few times...
Btw, I can tell you from orbital altitude what crops are being grown down to a 160 acre resolution. I found pineapples in Hawaii...
I'll know if I see pineapples in Hawaii, I've definately missed my turn!
yeah, but that means you were distracted for the last 2,493 miles... [QUOTE=Davidornado]yeah, but that means you were distracted for the last 2,493 miles... [/QUOTE]
It could happen
Don't you just hate it when they put new trees in the road at night? Once they moved an entire freeway just to laugh at me...Tried this this morning this is kinda how it went.
mile long bridge
mile long bridge
mile long bridge
hope the engineers were good
hope I don't go over the side
should i grab my purse or my cell if that happens
Then ended up a a redlight that I swear has never been there before and took a right when I should have gone straight. late for work
Thanks Barb,
I don't really recognise those days yet. The other day I "woke up" as I was walking into Kroger. Had no intention of going there, needed nothing.Drove ther pulled in and parked without any recollection. just got back in the truck and went home, but it does feel a little scary.
Gotta drive to work - do you have any other suggestions?
I'll definately work on "staying away" when Im driving
.
talking to myself about where I am? When I have to remember something, I repeat it outloud several times as if it were a mantra. This repitition is all i can think so I am usually less distracted. Of course, I first have to remember to repeat. Behavioral therapy--can an old dog learn new tricks???????/
country girl, I can relate to your daydreaming while driving. What happens to me is this: I'm driving along. All of a sudden my current location registers. I wonder
how I got there so quickly. I wouldn't remember the drive. I guess I was on automatic pilot.
I am sorry that I was not clearer.I meant: to repeat whatever it is you want to remember.
For instance, as barb wrote, " "consciously tell yourself " I turn right by the red building."
If I wanted to remember cues to help me remember my way, I would repeat outloud:
I turn right by the red building." I turn right by the red building." I turn right by the red building." I turn right by the red building." I turn right by the red building." ... until I felt I needed to select the following cue.
You just have to force yourself to look at something relatively permanent each time you make a turn or change direction, etc, then consciously tell yourself " I turn right by the red building", etc. After a couple of trips, you will find its easier to get around. This only works for me if there isn't a lot of outside stimulation such as heavy traffic.
You shouldn't be driving if you're daydreaming is so bad and out of control that you can't notice things. I have days when I will ask someone else to drive me if I feel that out of it. Its dangerous to everyone around you, not just those in your car.
My coach told me to make visual cues when I drive so I don't get lost so frequently. How do that when I daydream the whole time I drive? Can you control the daydreaming? Yeah, they won't stay your freinds, or they'll lock you up with people who'll understand you, finally!I usually listen to NPR news and repeat everything I hear within a second to stay 'entertained' during the drive. It helps to use alternative forms of memory to practice 'coping' skills.
JUST don't do this with your friends, to your friends, or anyone who knows your friends.
I drive for my job, so am on the road between 100 & 200 miles a day. Problem is, several little things happening at once can cause me to miss stop signs, red lights, and cut corners short. What can I do to avoid doing these things?
Another boston driver, here ;-) I actually love boston drivers, they all know what they are doing : trying to get where they want to go as fast as possible, at the expense of everyone else on the road. At least that way, they are predictable. Other places - you get weird behavior, like people stopping to let you turn into traffic, etc. Freaks me out ;-) I follow traffic laws to a T, so I tend to freak out the average boston driver, but at least they drive predictably for me ;-)
Countrygirl, I really hate to say this, but If you daydream so much while driving that you run into parked trucks, flatten mailboxes multiple times and end up places you had no intention of going, you should probably not be driving.
I didn't get a drivers license until I was 21 because i couldnt focus enough on the road. when i became capable of managing my ADD enough to drive, i got a license, not before. Of course sometimes i find myself going the wrong way (say, taking a right turn as if i'm going to work instead of turning left to go to the grocery store, just out of habit) but that is the exception not the rule, and that happens to everybody. Driving is not a joke, its very dangerous, and the fear of death or killing someone else works well enough to keep me extremely alert while driving. I listen to NPR too, it helps keep the overactive part of your mind busy so the normal part can drive the car.
Please consider not driving until you get the daydreaming under control. I know exactly what you mean by it. I used to daydream so much: one day, a friend of my mother's had to drive me to high school because something had come up. The school was only 15 minutes away, but I actually had no idea how to get there. I was horrified and embarassed that i had no idea how to get to a place I had been going to, every day, for 2 years, because getting in the car was like a magic switch to turn on my daydreams about anything and everything. That was a good part of why i didn't start driving. I realized i needed to get rid of the daydreams first. I've gotten rid of them mostly now. Good luck to you.
i love driving for that very reason --- that my brain goes onto autopilot. it's like a modern day form of meditation.that's what i reckon anyway.... especially long motorway journeys. i drive often to france to visit my sister and to switzerland to see friends both normally an eight-hour journey and it can get hard toward the end. but i tend to leave early, early in the morning so that it is not dark when i arrive (makes you too sleepy).
but those long stretches of autoroute (especially french cos they are always so empty) perfect. just foot down, cruise at 100 miles an hour, countryside goes flying past, don't have to think of anything at all. kilometers (cos in france) get eaten up so fast it feels like you are flying through.
i shoulda been a lorry driver.
but in london i often do that - get into the car then find myself outside my work when i meant to go and visit a friend cos it is a saturday... totally, momentarily confused until duh! you meant to be on the other side of town!!! but just fell into autopilot mode.
spent life getting lost hit wrong states etc dont recognize anything,
dropped 750 on gamin voice nav for vehicles i havent been lost in 2 yrs, what a stress relief asi do alot of residential work and bounce from pea sized towns all day
Heyo Rayo,I use a GPS device too.
Hook it up to my laptop.
5 Atlas USA.
I still get lost, b/c the pictures are pretty.