I have steadfastly refused to drive. I was forced by family to learn a loong time ago but never got behind a wheel after that license. It's a good thing, too, I think. I'm accident prone enough as it is. About this overwhelm from visual stimuli, I wonder if its related to the stuff I've often repeated here about the stress of learning new subway systems in new large metropolitan cities and a lot of stress from navigating large supermarkets especially if they keep changing where they put stuff every few months. In the new trains, I am never confident I have taken the right train heading towards the right direction and if I got off at the right stop especially the first few times. It takes repetitions to get me to relax that I know my way around, especially with a busy or chaotic physical environment.
“If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”
I'm usually a very alert driver... aware and know what is going on. And I pride myself on being one of the best in terms of maneuvering, and being as good of a driver I can be.
In curves and corners, I use the physics of the road and my car to drive the best racing line so that I can maintain the highest speed that is safe.. And I take merging to an art-form.
Driving literally is the only thing I can think of that I remotely would consider my "art".
When I took a motorcycle safety course...the instructor used me as the example for the figure 8 we all had to do... and I'd never been on a motorcycle before.
I did ride my bike quite a bit when I was a kid though. My bike equaled freedom..and so when I was 16, and I got my first car, the sense of freedom it gave me was wonderful. I dreamed of taking the road I lived by at the time all the way from Ohio to Colorado...as far as it could go, just on a whim.
Unfortunately, other drivers make me very nervous... I'm really sensitive, so when people are jerks, it really affects me. And I am very critical of people's mistakes unless I deem them okay for making that...I'll give extra allowances for people who seem new, or very old.
I used to take off my rear view mirror because I felt so much pressure to go faster, or get out of the way, to minimize myself to accomodate people on my tail. It caused so much anxiety.
And I'm worried about dying in a car crash... I can be the best driver in the world, but there are things out of my control...and I can't always account for stupid drivers. I have often, but I know you can't always.
If it was maybe in a world like a zombie apocalypse where I could be the only one on the road...I think I would like it (minus the zombies).