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What is the percentage of people with autism that have cars/drivers license? because i've noticed that a lot of people with autism don't drive

yeah reminds me, some people have told me, that i don't sound a person with autism, for example, a person who has a brother with autism/aspergers, told me that i sound and talk a lot differently socially than his brother does, because of that, sometimes im open to the possibility that i don't have autism, or at the least, my autism is just very high functioning, not a severe one at all.
 
I have a license but don't drive. It is partly because most people where i live are terrible drivers that don't care about rules, and partly because i have no sense of direction. Driving also requires anticipating other drivers' reactions and i cant do that.
 
yeah, at least several people i know of that are local to me, and other people with autism that live far away from me, don't have cars, don't drive, hence why i have been under the impression for years now, that its not unusual, not unheard of, for people with autism, that a large portion of them don't have cars or a drivers license.
 
It could be that those on the spectrum are actually very safe and confident drivers, but crossing that threshold into a new lifestyle which includes the unknown (driving a car) sounds so scary and uncertain that some of us just decide not to ever try.
 
I drove for 50 years never an accident. Tested in hospital she could not believe I could drive due to my compulsive reading. I read license plates, truck company logos, read fast so never an issue.
 
I grew up in a different era. Being able to drive represented freedom, and getting away from my family was something I really wanted. I started driving at 13, stealing Mum's car whenever the parents were out. I applied for my license on the day I turned 16.

This became important later too, it's much harder to get a job if you don't drive and the argument "I don't need to drive" holds no water here. This is as true today as it was back then, not having a driver's license is seen as a statement of poor character.
 
I lived in a rural area on a farm no licence get used to biking every where I would bike 30 miles to watch a drive in movie in my teens. bike home 2:00 in morning .
 
Outdated said:
I grew up in a different era. Being able to drive represented freedom, and getting away from my family was something I really wanted.
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Although I didn't learn how to drive until 18, when it's legal here, that's what it looked like for me when growing up too, that driving meant independence. I live in the city, but in the countryside it's not uncommon to learn to drive earlier, not quite legally. The truth is that it's also much harder to get anywhere in the countryside without a car, because of poor or nonexistent public transport. I'm not that old, I'm turning 28 this year, but younger people seem to be more against cars and driving.

I can't imagine not having a car. I would have a much harder time moving out or visiting my ex-girlfriend. Not to mention the much longer, uncomfortable and unhealthy commutes by public transport.
 
Jumpinbare said:
Me too. Can't not read them.
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How can reading be compulsive? I mean, there is so much text in today's society, that I find it hard to comprehend how for an adult reading isn't subconscious similarly to recognising speech. It's the same thing - you hear speech, you register what it means; you see text - you register what's there. In both cases you can then make mental effort to interpret what has just been absorbed.
 
During my CT scan to remove clot when They wheeled me in I read all the poster describing the procedure gold standard knew what the doctor was going to do cut my femoral artery and put a catheter up the artery into my brain grab the clot pull it out. I thought how neat.
 
vergil96 said:
How can reading be compulsive? I mean, there is so much text in today's society, that I find it hard to comprehend how for an adult reading isn't subconscious similarly to recognising speech. It's the same thing - you hear speech, you register what it means; you see text - you register what's there. In both cases you can then make mental effort to interpret what has just been absorbed.
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And therein is the compulsive part. The text is in front of me, it gets processed. Same as sounds around me, textures and smells around me, etc.
 
Jumpinbare said:
And therein is the compulsive part. The text is in front of me, it gets processed. Same as sounds around me, textures and smells around me, etc.
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It was framed as if it was an action someone was consciously taking though, not as if it was involuntary like perceiving a smell or a something equally low-grade. It's not the same as smell, it's not as primitive perception, but still extremely habitual and subconscious even if learnt at some point, it sounds as strange as "compulsory walking", "compulsory standing in balance", "compulsory understanding of the English language" etc. Was this doctor a 100 years old and coming from an age of analphabetism?
 
Apparently with my complex sleep apnea, I have trouble with compulsory breathing. A bit of biological PDA on my part?
 
vergil96 said:
How can reading be compulsive? I mean, there is so much text in today's society, that I find it hard to comprehend how for an adult reading isn't subconscious similarly to recognising speech. It's the same thing - you hear speech, you register what it means; you see text - you register what's there. In both cases you can then make mental effort to interpret what has just been absorbed.
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Look up hyperlexia. The TL;DR is that early reading is recognized by some as a disability these days, which is mind-blowing to say the least. Per Wikipedia, 80%+ of early readers are autistic.

We initially thought my youngest was a super genius for teaching himself to read from age 3. Following in my footsteps - I taught myself how to read early at a similar age.

But it seems to me to be the case that for NTs, no matter how smart they are, they will typically not learn to read until about age 5. We tried a lot with my oldest son, and I will admit at frustration that he was clearly intelligent but refused to "grok" reading, while I clearly remembered being an early reader.

We were much less insistent on early reading with my youngest son. He never had the attention span to sit through a book, unlike my NT son at the same age. So naturally when the youngest son started reading on his own at a ridiculously early age - through zero effort on our part - we mistook that for genius. He's gifted, but not that gifted.
 
I have a license but don't drive. The people in my country are horrible drivers who don't follow rules and there are a lot of accidents every year.

I also don't have a sense of direction so no driving for me
 
jsilver256 said:
Look up hyperlexia. The TL;DR is that early reading is recognized by some as a disability these days, which is mind-blowing to say the least. Per Wikipedia, 80%+ of early readers are autistic.

We initially thought my youngest was a super genius for teaching himself to read from age 3. Following in my footsteps - I taught myself how to read early at a similar age.

But it seems to be the case that for NTs, no matter how smart they are, they will typically not learn to read until about age 5. We tried a lot with my oldest son, and I will admit at frustration that he was clearly intelligent but refused to "grok" reading, while I clearly remembered being an early reader.

We were much less insistent on early reading with my youngest son. He never had the attention span to sit through a book, unlike my NT son at the same age. So naturally when the youngest son started reading on his own at a ridiculously early age - through zero effort on our part - we mistook that for genius. He's gifted, but not that gifted.
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I gather from your post that it's rather about the deficits and problems in other areas that reading can be a "problem". Everyone I know that could read before they went to school ended up being a doctor, lawyer, programmer or a scientist and was a very good student. One guy was in Mensa for kids.
 
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