tells the BBC’s Woman’s Hour.<\/a><\/p>\nMary’s driving anxiety isn’t unusual. <\/p>\n
Diane Curtis Knight, a driving instructor who specialises in helping anxious drivers, says a fear of motorways is one of the most common issues she’s asked to help with.<\/p>\n
She explains that often the issue isn’t the motorway itself, but other problems in your life which cause stress or anxiety and can come out when you’re driving. <\/p>\n
The first step to addressing the fear, is changing how you talk about the problem, suggesting the word “yet” as a powerful word to help with this, she says.<\/p>\n
“If someone says, ‘I can’t drive on motorways’, we need to start planting seeds into their subconscious mind to say, ‘Well, I can’t do that yet, but maybe I can do it at some stage’.”<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764841451_131_grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1735b270-c49d-11f0-9d93-43c068b4c1e4.jpg.webp.webp\")
Mary McCarthy<\/p>\n
Mary now lives in Brussels with her four children, husband and their dog<\/p>\n
Diane also recommends starting a journal to help identify the barriers that are preventing you taking on certain car journeys. <\/p>\n
After each drive, she suggests scoring how anxious you felt about the journey beforehand and how it was in reality, with one being totally fine and 10 extremely anxious.<\/p>\n
“We tend to find the anticipation of the journey is often worse than the execution.”<\/p>\n
Using this as a basis to push yourself to take on more ambitious journeys can slowly help you improve, she says.<\/p>\n
Other stories you may enjoy<\/p>\n
Tracey Field, a stress management practitioner, runs the website Confident Drivers aimed at helping people who struggle with driving anxiety. <\/p>\n
She says the issue is often worse in couples where one person takes the lead on driving, which can lead to the other person becoming “de-skilled” and “less confident”.<\/p>\n
Tracey says it’s often this lack of experience that causes problems.<\/p>\n
“It’s not actually the driving, it’s the fear of the unknown, of not knowing automatically what to do when.”<\/p>\n
If you are struggling, she recommends having motorway lessons and easing yourself in slowly, for example by using a short junction, travelling at a quieter time of day or practising on a small roundabout. <\/p>\n
She also suggests learning emotional regulation techniques to keep you calm in the moment, such as breathing exercises or humming.<\/p>\n
A turning point for Mary came when she realised her driving anxiety was limiting what she could do with her children. <\/p>\n
As they’ve got older they increasingly go to different places, and public transport is not always a practical way to get there.<\/p>\n
“There have been times when I’ve said ‘you can’t make that play date’, and I’ll feel really bad. <\/p>\n
“By motorway, we could go in 22 minutes, but when we get public transport, it’s going to take two hours.”<\/p>\n
Her 14-year-old daughter asked her why she couldn’t just “lock in” and drive, even offering help with directions, forcing Mary to explain that she just couldn’t do it.<\/p>\n
Now, ahead of turning 50 next year, she plans to take motorway lessons, partly to set an example to her daughter.<\/p>\n
“I need to crack this fear, I would love to be able to drive on a motorway without feeling I am about to die.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy has been driving for almost 20 years, but has only driven on the motorway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-331314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/29beb900-c49d-11f0-a493-df5fd74495dc.jpg.webp.webp\")
Mary McCarthy<\/p>\n