Excuse my snipping I'm on mobile.
I really want to address this: I didn't get my license until I was 26. I tell you from experience, get off your ass and do it. Yes it's scary yes you feel dumb for being so old, yes parallel parking is stupid but do it. Do it, seriously! The sense of freedom and happiness when you can get in the car and do things for yourself is fucking amazing. Do it. Doooo itttt.
Oh, I do plan on trying to get it this summer, simply because whether I like it or not, it really is a basic necessity of life. The only problem is... I really shouldn't be on the road though. Like I said, I have a phobia involving traffic lights. The thing is I absolutely need time to make a decision. And when I see I yellow light, I panic, because you have to make the decision on whether to keep on whether you're close enough to keep driving through or slow down and stop pretty damn quickly. But that involves considering a combination of the speed you're currently driving at and your distance from the light and whether that information means you should pass through the intersection or slow down and stop. And you have to process that and make that information pretty damn quick. But that's just not how my brain is wired--for whatever reason, I just can't process that information and make the decision, especially not in a split-second, unless I'm far back from the light when it changes. This also goes for pretty much everything in life--I really, really dislike making snap judgments period and much prefer to have time to think and mull things over.
But anyway, when I was first learning how to drive as a teen, I was actually in a small accident due to this. I was driving on like a 40 mph street together with my mom, and I got to a traffic signal which turned yellow just before I got to the intersection and I panicked and hit the breaks. Except I was apparently close enough to the intersection that I should have passed through, and ended up having to floor my breaks in order to stop without actually going into the intersection. This of course caused the person behind my to end up rear-ending me, since naturally there was no way they could have reasonably expected me to do that (I mean, I know it's still technically their fault and not mine, but I know I was really the cause of the problem). There was fortunately no real damage to either of our cars or anything (just a minor scratch to the car I was driving) and the guy was great about it, but that incident basically confirmed by already existing fears and shook me up nonetheless made me pretty much abandon the idea for the time.
Of course, I know that if I have to think about whether I should pass through or not, that means that I should probably pass through, but it's still hard getting that worry out of my head and overcoming it, especially since I'm particularly worried that one day I'll end up having the opposite problem of the accident I was in: passing through into an intersection and
not stopping when I should have, being hit by oncoming traffic and causing a real accident where not only I but other people could end up dying as well. I know that's a small risk, but already being involved in an accident when I first tried to learn driving doesn't exactly give me much confidence.
It also doesn't help that I really don't like highways either, due to how quickly you have to accelerate on the entrance ramp to be able to merge into them and just not feeling comfortable driving at speeds higher than like 50-55 mph period--it just feels like too much to me and I don't like being in control of something going that fast and am always glad when I can get off.
But like I said, I am planning on giving it another go this summer because whether I like it or not, it unfortunately pretty much is a necessity. I just really wish I didn't have to. >.< Self-driving cars can't get here soon enough, IMO.