Phobias of everyday activities - Halp!

Fog, night, one-lane highway, I'm kind of terrified...

https://i.imgur.com/7yRLW7O.gif

I almost posted Walken/Duane the other night--I've got that clip on my mind constantly when I'm on the road these days. (Really, one of the most perfectly executed and funniest bits in any Woody film ever.)

I had a similar fog experience when I had just gotten my license. It was Alaska in midsummer, and I borrowed a car from my uncle and drove it around town for a few days without ever having to use the lights because it never got dark. It wasn't until I was on the highway at three in the morning and a zero-visibility fog rolled in that I realized that I didn't actually know how to turn the lights on at all. My cousin was in the passenger's seat, and by hanging her head out the window she could see the edge of the road, so she told me when to turn and I swung the wheel and somehow made it into a parking lot, where I poked at buttons and twisted knobs until something came on - it turned out to be the parking lights, but as we were idiot teenagers we figured lights were lights and got back on the road. We made it back to town, and the fog lifted, and I promptly got pulled over for driving with my parking lights on.

See if you can find a driving instructor who can train you in some common evasive driving techniques (hydroplaning, sudden stops, steering out of skids, sudden lane changes). You can't learn that stuff any other way except doing it a few times so your body develops the right reflexes. It might reduce your anxiety once you know A. that while it's unpleasant it isn't maybe the nightmare you are envisioning and B. you are more confident you can deal with emergency driving situations should they arise.

otm, I was thinking about mentioning hydroplaning and skidding and doing driving lessons but was unsure if it would create more anxiety thinking about it. I once hydroplaned in the mountains in central PA in my early 20s and it had never happened before but I was amazed that I automatically did what I had been taught. My spouse was with me and luckily didn't say a word until I got control of the car.

Sorry to keep framing this via personal anecdote, but the first time I ever encountered black ice was within a year or two of getting my license as a teenager. Came right out of the blue--probably closer to spring than winter. Being the first time, I did the worst possible thing, hit (and probably held onto) the break; spent the next half-minute going from my lane into the oncoming lane, back and forth. Miraculously, there was no oncoming traffic--ended up in the ditch on my side. I think that one experience, 40 years ago, is still there as part of my driving phobias today. (Since I traveled the same roads over and over again for the next 40 years, though, they were basically neutralized; it's only recently, since moving, they've all come back.)

Forced myself to make the two-hour drive home from Toronto at night today (possibly last chance to see a film I'd been anticipating for almost two years).

Wasn't bad at all. A couple of typically insane drivers before I got out of city limits--I actively root for these people to kill themselves in one-car accidents before they take someone with them--but once outside of Toronto, no problem. For much of the way (the 401, a heavily traveled Canadian highway), I stayed on the inside lane behind two other vehicles, one of them a transport, that were driving just like I do, a few km over the posted speed limit. There was rarely anybody behind me--they had the other two lanes to pass.

The biggest difference is getting new glasses a couple of weeks ago.

I think on some level I believe that I had a finite amount of driving luck, and it has now run out and it's only a matter of time until violent vehicular death comes my way.

Came across this old post from Carl today and I still feel this in my bones every time I’m in a car.