Did any of you have special highway driving lessons?

Learn to use your mirrors well...you'll feel (and be) safer if you can know what's happening behind and beside you.

caitlin, where do you drive so I can avoid it? ;)

Haha. Good advice for my sake and everyone else's.

For example, you never have to gauge the best time to make a turn across a lane of traffic, you never have to worry about right of way (or watching for morons who have forgotten about right of way) at an intersection, etc.

As long as you can master getting up to the appropriate speed and merging into highway traffic, the rest as I see it is gravy.

Except maybe in Pennsylvania where the roads are full of 4 foot deep potholes and the entrance ramps you're expected to use to gain full speed on before merging are approximately 10 feet long.

The mirror advice here is U&K. I hate driving a block in a car where the mirrors aren't set to my standards, even worse when it's an SUV or something with a big ass blind spot. Always be thinking, planning ahead - know where the cars are around you and when and where you have to change lanes or exit well in advance. Expect the worst of your fellow drivers. Many of them shouldn't have licenses and most of them are chatting on their cellphone.

Keep up with the flow of traffic - my theory is that you're more endangered (and dangerous) driving scared, dipping below the limit or flow of traffic and getting panicky. If you miss your exit don't slam on your brakes and try to make it, there's always another exit.

I had one lesson in this sort of driving when I was learning. In the UK, it's illegal for provisional drivers to go on motorways, but they *can* go on dual carriageways (which have slightly different regulations but essentially the same driving style), and there is a chance that you'll get taken on one on your driving test.

This doesn't really answer the question, except for the fact that I had an awful experience stalling on the freeway during rush hour back then, even with lessons, which (I'm pretty sure) included freeway driving.

I'm afraid this is about to happen to me--I have an Illinois license that is due to expire next month and I've since moved my home address to MA but live mostly overseas and can't get back there to renew/change it in person. Ugh.

I loathe highway driving around cities. More than two lanes going in one direction and my panic threshold lowers considerably. I do alright despite this although I'll still avoid highway driving if I can get wherever I'm going in roughly the same time via smaller roads.

Something my mom told me while I was learning to drive: when passing another car, once you can see that car in your rearview mirror, you'll have plenty of room to merge into the lane in front of them. When merging left though I do always check mirrors and then do a little over-the-shoulder glance to make sure there's no one in my blind spot. I hate hate hate merging right.

the easiest way to drive is to be always aware of what cars are around you. don't leave it until you're about to merge to check the mirrors and always do the blindspot check and be extra careful if you know there's a motorcyclist around cos they sometimes do stupid shit.