The other day, I was taking my MIL to visit some friends. The route took me past Food Lion, where I frequently shop. I automatically pulled into their parking lot because that’s what I do. It only took a couple of seconds to realize I’d goofed.
FCD does something similar - part of his morning routine is driving to McD’s for a fountain soda and a biscuit. So, often when he starts out in that general direction, he misses the turn to where he wants to go because he’s used to heading to McD’s.
Have you ever shifted into Park in like, say, a parking lot and ask yourself How did I get here? i.e. I just drove 15 miles to the store and don’t remember one minute of the trip? Happens way too often.
All the damn time. If the route to a specific destination overlaps the route for a routine drive (like a commute), I will almost always almost switch over to the routine route. Sometimes I don’t catch it in time and actually make the switch, like missing a turn.
Autopilot is one of the reason I use GPS nearly every time I drive. I can zone out and know I’ll reach my destination without thinking about my destination.
Oh yes I’m on my way to the store but I sometimes drive on the direction of work, oops, hang a U and shake out the cobwebs!
I once completely felt lost while driving the back M roads, hilly tunnel of trees interspersed with farms, lakes and villages for hours then all of sudden I’m like where the fun am I? Battle Creek Kalamazoo Hastings? Oh oh oh yeah no I do know where I’m going but it all looks the same I truly felt I had lost my bearings.
Imagine it’s the middle of the night, you’re sound asleep in a bed, suddenly the tones drop, you awaken from a sound sleep & swing your legs over the side & into your pants before your feet hit the floor, changing into uniform shirt as you stand. I’d get to the hospital, getting out of the driver’s seat & not remember a bit of the ride. The weird thing is I’d remember dealing with the patient, just not getting to them or getting them to the ER.
Afraid so. What’s worse is occasionally realizing I don’t know where I am. In a half hour from home I can be in four different States, so I’ll often ask myself, “Wait, what State am I in???”
Yep. In fact, you have to be careful if I’m giving you a ride home because you may not get there. LOL There’s been more than one occasion where I volunteered to giver someone a ride home or a ride to pick up their car but, out of habit, started heading for the interstate and home. “Where are we going?!” usually wakes me up.
I did it yesterday. Pulled out of my driveway and turned left. Got to the light and when it turned green, I went straight. I was supposed to turn left at the light.
I was thinking about the destination I went to Sunday instead of the destination I was going to Monday.
Exactly the same for me: I know 99% of my car journeys by heart but it is better that the voice tells me again where I want to go next so I don’t mix it up. It usually works. Sometimes, it seems, I am not really listening. Same thing that my wife sometimes claims.
Incessantly.
It’s problematic when my auto-pilot/ muscle memory takes me over a bridge. Or, I need to use the bridge but NOT the usual exit.
Since I live near the infamous Tri-Boro Bridge in NYC, this really is a rough one. I’ve only taken the wrong boro a few times in…about…43 years living in and near NYC. But holy moley…
The less problematic ones are in the neighborhood and if I go the usual way, well…go 2 blocks over to the next one-way street and turn there.
I do it and it’s one of the reasons I have sympathy for some of those parents who mistakenly leave infants in hot cars. I had a similar incident with my son on a non-hot day driving to work with him in the back and drove right past his day care. Luckily before I got to work something jarred me back into where I was and I remembered he was back there sound asleep. Scared the crap out me.
People who say “there is absolutely no way you can forget your child in a car” really have no idea.
Question for those who say yes: is this a safety issue? Is the kind of Not Paying Attention involved in driving on “autopilot” different from the kind of Not Paying Attention that could make you (for example) crash into the car in front of you if it stops suddenly?
I’ve frequently driven somewhere without putting much conscious thought into what I’m doing. Usually I’m not so much in a “fugue state” where I have no memory of the drive (though there was one time, in the early 80s, where that happened) but if it’s somewhere familiar, that part of the brain isn’t heavily involved.
I have never left a kid in the car, though I have left groceries in front of the store (where you put your cart out front, then drive up to load the car). In one case, I remembered them after I’d been to Jiffy Lube for an oil change, and realized I’d never loaded the food!
Near me, there is an entrance to an HOV-only highway (it was open to all cars after 9 AM). I usually had passengers, so I could take that. but one day, I did NOT… and I absentmindedly got on the highway there. Realized what I was doing just after it was too late to do anything about it. Luckily, I got away with it that day - it would have meant a steep fine.
I don’t think that most “autopilot” driving is a safety issue. I really think that a different part of the brain, or at least conscious thought, is involved. I mean, once you’re an experienced driver, past the point of needing to explicitly think of every single move you’re making, a lot of the basic safety management is somewhat automatic anyway. Sure, if you are driving somewhere without thinking of the route, and suddenly “oh shit I should have exited back there!”, you might inadvertently make some unsafe maneuver to try to correct your error.
I’ve experienced highway hypnosis many, many times. Usually on very long drives back when all I had was a radio in the car and the local stations mostly sucked (IMO).
Three hours would pass and I’d wonder how I got to where I was in so little time. Apparently it is a thing and, weirdly, safe.
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down 
