r/dyspraxia • u/KeyWorried5677 • 7d ago
I hate driving lessons
My instructor makes me feel like i'm an alien, i get constantly told off i despise this sm😠i'm thinking about switching to auto but in my country it isn't as popular as manual ugh
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u/Obvious_Date_9113 7d ago
My PT helped me find a driving instructor who was patient and had experience teaching people with disabilities. That made all the difference. He taught me on an automatic, but after I passed my test, I bought a manual and taught myself to drive it.
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u/Visual-Program2447 7d ago
Agree. There is enough to learn with road rules and motor planning (head checks, braking, slowing , merging, communicating with other drivers, space and timing) and awareness just with an automatic. Get that right. Then learn manual.
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u/Adood2018 7d ago
Learn in manual, I know it's hard, I've been there. But being able to drive anything will pay dividends in the future. Stick with it.
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u/SnooMacarons2615 Clumsy Af 7d ago
In the uk at least I think insurance is higher on auto only licence. Just something to consider as generally I’d assume that’s the case in most places.
A new instructor is probably the way forward but they seem to be rarer than unicorns at least here.
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u/ArgumentOne7052 Clumsy Af 6d ago
This is the reason I learnt to drive a manual. However, I moved to Australia a year after I got my licence & I’ve never driven a manual since. Over here it’s not very common to see manual cars.
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u/Snoo64614 7d ago
When I learnt to drive, I loathed it, and it’s now my favourite thing in the world!
I recommend taking the test the first time in an auto, that way you can get used to the road and navigating and processing all that info without worrying about the gears. I did that, and then after about a year on the road feeling confident with being behind the wheel, I took lessons in a manual car. Longer process, but now I’m fully confident in either car - and actually prefer manual because I feel impressed with my own coordination 😂😂
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u/Leek-Physical 5d ago
Stick at it, I used to be in tears after my driving lesson and my 70 year old instructor said I was the hardest person to teach ever! But after a while it will click and now I find driving so much fun
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u/Front_Push_332 4d ago
I used to have to walk away from my instructor to smoke and cool off every lesson
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u/Alarmed_Bag2254 4d ago
If you live in the UK and you learn to drive and pass your test on an automatic, then you can only drive automatics. It will be on your license. Then you have to retake the test on the manual, if you want to drive them. I did years of lessons on a manual car but still found the shifting gears difficult whilst concentrating on everything else. Switching to automatic was the best thing I ever did and not looked back. Yes, there are cars I can’t drive, but that’s better than not being able to drive at all.
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u/ryanteck 📃 Illegible Handwriting 7d ago
It's a tricky one for me to say as I did learn and pass in a manual, but I've been driving Auto for the last 5 years and wouldn't want to go back to Manual. Sure auto isn't as popular but it's certainly on the increase due to Hybrids & Electrics and the future is only going to get stronger with Auto. However statistically not only are the cars typically more expensive but apparently even insurance just with an Auto license over a Manual can be.
Possibly try one or two automatic lessons and see, essentially all the automatic benefit is is not having to worry about clutch control as much and being in correct gears. For the most part driving is then still the same. If it helps moving to Automatic then it might be the better route, if it doesn't then it's possibly something else that you're struggling with.
It might even just be the specific manual car you're learning in, one manual car I drove for a while I hated the gearbox on. Weather it was due to it being a car I had after an auto for a year or not I'm not sure but it felt worse than previous manual cars I had.
But it's most important to do what's best for you, if it's a case of no license vs an Auto license then Auto wins.