Getting Back Behind the Wheel
For getting back to driving after a crash, a near miss, or years out of the driver's seat. It rebuilds the habit in small steps, starting with the parked car and a quiet loop, and adds one new thing at a time rather than all of it at once.
Driving · Anxiety · Resilience · 8 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Sit in the parked car with the engine off — the first step is being in the seat, not going anywhere.
- Drive the same quiet loop three times — a route you already know takes the navigating out of it.
- Pick the hour with the least traffic — easy conditions first is how anyone relearns anything.
- Take someone calm in the passenger seat — company now is not a failure to drive alone later.
- Keep the radio off for the first few trips — quiet leaves room for the road instead of your head.
- Know where you could pull over on the route — an exit you can name is what makes setting off possible.
- Add one new thing each time, not three — a bigger road or a longer trip, never both at once.
- Say out loud what went fine afterward — the near misses get remembered without any help from you.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.