Driving & Lack of Concentration - Does this happen to you?

[Nige1969]

Twice in the past two days I've found myself driving & taking a route that wasn't the way I intended to go.

For example yesterday I had taken my wife & mother in law to a hospital appointment & in the car Park afterwards we all discussed how my mother in law was coming home with us & not back to her own home.
However after a few minutes on the journey my wife who had been on her phone & not taking much notice suddenly looked up & asked where e were going as I had taken the route back to my mother in laws It was only then I realised I wasnt going where I was supposed to. My brain had wandered off thinking about other things that I wasn't concentrating on where I was going.

Again today similar thing happened. Been out to an appointment for work & knew the route I needed to take to get to the next one so set off. Few minutes later I realised I wasn't taking route I intended to as my mind had gone off elsewhere.

I know everyone forgets where they are going sometimes but this happens to me frequently & I was wondering if other people with Dyspraxia find it happening to them.
I've only very recently been diagnosed so trying to fully understand how my dyspraxia affects me.

[Tom fod]

This sort of thing is not untypical and we probably do this sort of thing more often the average person, not that they are immune from doing stuff on autopilot. One thing quite a lot of us are is very hard on ourselves for things we can't help.

BTW I have redirected the post into Transport

[R1ch8rD]

Hi Nige1969

I can completely relate to this. I can't navigate and hold a decent conversation at the same time. If I'm navigating well then I'm not taking on board the conversation of the passenger. If I'm totally engained in the conversation then I will almost certainly need to turn around at some point.

Satnavs can also be a problem. I can't switch between navagating between the satnav and my own sence of direction very well. I don't know if is because it uses a different part of the brain?

[nickye]

I can really relate to this. I find satnavs a bit confusing - and I don't really like multi-tasking - I know women are supposed to be good at this but my husband is much better than me at multi-tasking!

I find if the satnav says turn right i find it hard not to think i've go to turn right immediately, and that I must check it's clear. I'd rather learn my own route and then concentrate on the traffic. The weird thing is I have a good memory for names of roads and can memorise a list of instructions, but trying to think quickly under pressure is difficult. I tend to remember everyone's birthdays, but don't recognise somewhere I went yesterday.

I have improved over time though and my spatial awareness is better than it used to be. I think also the more we worry about these things, the worse they get, but it is hard not to be stressed.

[Desert Rose]

I'm about to start learning to drive and this is one of my main concerns, I often just zone out and just stare into space when I'm supposed to be focusing. Unfortunately it's not something I can really do much about since I'm not concious of it at the time.

[djgard27]

I have to admit my poor concentration has put me off driving having had quite a few lessons.