Driving miss BPD

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I've seen few threads like this before but I find the whole destructive behaviour of: reckless driving, a bit of a forgotten potential symptom of BPD. Hearing some of the stories I am amazed how some of them pass and really have to debate the, what I already think is a quite flawed (in the UK anyway), driving testing system to allow and continue to permit some of these persons on the road.

My non-ex's dBPDgf got her license in the same month as our BU, she was just hitting 30 at this time and had already failed her test 5 times (not sure what time period that was over). She passed, had a car, all good to go. In her first week she crashed into a wall and wrote her car off. I remember when she told me and I was thinking 'How the heck?' I mean we've all had accidents, I've had two myself involving inanimate objects... .but in 6 years... .and never written a car off. So screwed, no car, no driving, stuck relying on lifts from people again and her town's rubbish transport system.

I'm pretty confident she never bought another car, don't see how she would have been able to afford it. So my ex must have to run her round everywhere now ha must be fun :S. I wouldn't be surprised if she's now off the idea of driving for life now.

But yes, what have your experiences been? Road rage? Over cautious? Ditzy-ness and general ignorance? Accidents? Damage to property, vehicles or even people :S?

[Springle]

I've seen few threads like this before but I find the whole destructive behaviour of: reckless driving, a bit of a forgotten potential symptom of BPD. Hearing some of the stories I am amazed how some of them pass and really have to debate the, what I already think is a quite flawed (in the UK anyway), driving testing system to allow and continue to permit some of these persons on the road.

My non-ex's dBPDgf got her license in the same month as our BU, she was just hitting 30 at this time and had already failed her test 5 times (not sure what time period that was over). She passed, had a car, all good to go. In her first week she crashed into a wall and wrote her car off. I remember when she told me and I was thinking 'How the heck?' I mean we've all had accidents, I've had two myself involving inanimate objects... .but in 6 years... .and never written a car off. So screwed, no car, no driving, stuck relying on lifts from people again and her town's rubbish transport system.

I'm pretty confident she never bought another car, don't see how she would have been able to afford it. So my ex must have to run her round everywhere now ha must be fun :S. I wouldn't be surprised if she's now off the idea of driving for life now.

But yes, what have your experiences been? Road rage? Over cautious? Ditzy-ness and general ignorance? Accidents? Damage to property, vehicles or even people :S?

[camuse]

My ex failed her test 18 times in a row. She hadn't passed by the time we split, said she got too nervous to concentrate.

I've no idea how that ties into BPD but I wouldnt be surprised if there is some link.

[Bak86]

i know my ex failed a couple of times before she got it. and she's too afraid to drive now.

[AwakenedOne]

"what have your experiences been? Road rage?"

Most of her road rage was against the passenger in the vehicle, which was me. She would drive in an insane and extremely dangerous way to punish and torture me for making her angry.

[Springle]

"what have your experiences been? Road rage?"

Most of her road rage was against the passenger in the vehicle, which was me. She would drive in an insane and extremely dangerous way to punish and torture me for making her angry.

I've heard this one a lot and it still really surprises me 0_0, putting anyone in real danger as a form of revenge is a terrible thing to do. Must have bee very frightening. Did you ever try to get out of the car? Lay down the boundary? Or did that only exacerbate things?

i know my ex failed a couple of times before she got it. and she's too afraid to drive now.

Heard this one too. I know this was an odd question but is this a trait seen in other PD also? My non-ex had some narcissistic traits (though I don't think he was actually NPD) and I found him very cautious when he drove, not afraid so much but he almost acted like a man 30 years his senior behind the wheel (in fact he did this with a lot of things in life). I would have always thought N drivers would be more reckless drivers in terms of taking dangerous chances and thinking they own the road rather than being extremely cautious.

[Blimblam]

"what have your experiences been? Road rage?"

Most of her road rage was against the passenger in the vehicle, which was me. She would drive in an insane and extremely dangerous way to punish and torture me for making her angry.

My experiences in life with people that have road rage tend to have anger issues. The BPD I knew that drove had some messed up road rage thAt is for sure.

[AwakenedOne]

"what have your experiences been? Road rage?"

Most of her road rage was against the passenger in the vehicle, which was me. She would drive in an insane and extremely dangerous way to punish and torture me for making her angry.

I've heard this one a lot and it still really surprises me 0_0, putting anyone in real danger as a form of revenge is a terrible thing to do. Must have bee very frightening. Did you ever try to get out of the car? Lay down the boundary? Or did that only exacerbate things?

If I said or did anything when she was "driving angry" it only made things worse. I'm talking about driving like you would see in the "Fast & Furious" movies except that it wasn't in a high performance car. She would scream nonstop at an ear piercing level. One time I tried to get out of the car at a stoplight and she scratched my back really bad with her fingernails. One time I walked 7 miles to our house over 2 hours because I felt she was in danger of road raging us to death on the way home after I saw restaurant rage during our meal. Hard to look back at our marriage as anything other than abuse.

[Pieter2]

Same here - Mine had terrible road rage. It was embarrassing and frightening at the same time. My car is a 2.2L turbo and I struggled to keep up with her (driving a 1.6L). That was scary. I could never really understand it, but she was always in some sort of accident, rage incident, bumper bashing etc. etc. Never took responsibility. Got into accidents and drove off!