Escape your comfort zone: I am terrified of driving – but behind the wheel I find new confidence

It has been 10 years since I last stalled a car. I was 18 and drifting across several lanes of an A-road roundabout while my driving test examiner gripped his seat. It was my second attempt at taking the test and my brain had turned into sweaty spaghetti. As I casually cut in front of an HGV, the examiner gasped and demanded I take the next exit. I mirrored, signalled and manoeuvred, found a safe space to pull up, and promptly stalled metres from the curb.

I failed – of course I did – and didn’t get back in the driver’s seat in a hurry. I finished school and went to university, always deferring the prospect of booking another test. Years passed, priorities shifted, and even though I kept telling myself that driving is a scourge on the environment, a decade of scrounging lifts from my friends and family has taken its toll.

Read the feature in the Guardian.

[This piece was published on 28/12/21]