Fear of Driving Over Bridges? The Chesapeake Bay Bridge
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland (nearly 7 km long) is so frightening to some drivers, there is a service that will drive you across the bridge in your own car.
Is the fear of driving over a bridge (or fear of driving in general) any different than any other fear, and therefore, would the ‘cure’ be the same? If a person goes through their entire life being afraid of spiders (or heights, or whatever else), and every time they see one, they scream and run away; well that is probably fine in the grand scheme of things since the worst thing that can happen is, well, the screaming and running away part, and possibly a spider bite. But driving? Maybe one can survive for a while without driving over a certain bridge or driving at all. But one day in an emergency situation where they may be the only person capable of driving, what if they weren’t able to?
Are there people in the Vancouver area who refuse to drive over the Lions Gate Bridge? What about the Iron Workers Memorial Crossing? Or the Puttullo? If there was a service that would drive you and your vehicle across the bridge, would you use it?
‘They say’ that to beat fear, we must face fear.
Perhaps if people face their fears, they will find that it is not actually so bad to drive over any of these bridges. Logically, it doesn’t make sense to fear bridges based on collision statistics. A fear of intersections seems much more logical since that is where collisions occur most frequently.
Carmen Cohoe
Carmen became a driving instructor in beautiful North Vancouver at the age of 22 due to some crazy people who agreed to hire her. After that, there was never a dull moment teaching many different folks from many different places how to drive using automatic and standard vehicles and a minivan.
