Why is it missed in PTSD assessment?

Because avoidance at a kerb reads as caution, which is normal learning behaviour, rather than as fear, which is abnormal avoidance. The two look identical from outside, and after a road accident the caution is exactly what an assessor would expect to find, so the phobia sits inside the expected reaction and is never counted.

What does dromos mean?

Racetrack, in Greek, which is a striking thing for the root of a fear of ordinary streets to be. The alternative name agyrophobia comes from a different root, meaning a gathering or a place of assembly, and points at the crowd rather than the traffic.

How does limited mobility produce it?

Through anticipatory anxiety. Somebody with stiff-person syndrome may have attacks of increasing stiffness or spasm partway across, and expecting that is enough on its own. The form named as most specific in the literature is fear of crossing streets alone, which carries most of the weight in the post-accident route.

Why does it appear in autism?

Because the underlying task is harder. Some neurological conditions affect the ability to judge the speed of an approaching car, particularly in children, and a person who cannot reliably estimate how fast something is coming has a rational problem rather than a phobic one.

Is this fear learned or innate?

Learned, and it is the standard example. Adam Alter uses agyrophobia in 2013 alongside fear of the number thirteen as his two cases of phobias acquired through experience, setting both against claustrophobia, which he says appears to be innate. A road is a recent object and nobody is born wary of one.

What does Wikipedia list as further reading?

One work: Thomas Szasz's A Lexicon of Lunacy of 1993. Szasz argued for decades that psychiatric diagnoses are moral judgements in medical dress, and the book catalogues the profession's coinages as an indictment. An article about a phobia pointing readers at the best-known critic of phobia words is an unusual thing to find, and the article does not remark on it.

Fear of Crossing the Road (Agyrophobia): Meaning & Symptoms

Fear of Crossing the Road

Agyrophobia

Two names cover it, dromophobia and agyrophobia, and what they name is a specific phobia that gets in the way of one ordinary act: putting oneself onto a street or roadway that vehicles might be using. Its most interesting feature is how easily it disappears during assessment.

Where the misreading happens

Being hit by a car is one way in, and where the fear arrives by that route it can end up filed underneath panic disorder with Agoraphobia, as a subtype of it. It can also be a component of accident-related post-traumatic stress disorder, a reaction to a situation that resembles the original event, and fear of crossing streets alone is the specific form that carries most of that weight.

The problem arrives at the assessment. The behaviour can be misinterpreted during evaluation of post-traumatic stress symptoms as caution, which is normal learning behaviour, rather than as fear, which is abnormal avoidant behaviour. Somebody who is very careful at a kerb after being hit by a car looks like somebody who has learned something. Distinguishing the two requires asking what happens when the road is empty.

Which other routes lead into it

Anticipatory anxiety about limited mobility produces it without any accident. A person with stiff-person syndrome, for example, may have attacks of increasing stiffness or spasm while crossing, and the anticipation of that is enough.

There is a third group in whom the judgement rather than the nerve is what falters. Autism and various other neurological conditions can interfere with estimating how fast a car is closing, and children are the ones this reaches most often. That version is not a misjudgement of risk. It is an accurate response to a genuinely harder task.

Why agyrophobia is the textbook learned fear

Adam Alter uses agyrophobia in Drunk Tank Pink, published in 2013, to make a distinction rather than to describe a patient. Some human phobias, he writes, are acquired with experience, and he names fear of the number thirteen and fear of crossing the street as his two examples. Claustrophobia, by contrast, appears to be innate.

That is a useful place for this entry to sit. A road is a modern object, the danger it presents is real and recent, and nobody is born wary of one. If any fear in this catalogue is learned rather than inherited, it is this one, and it is the example a writer reaches for when he needs a clean case.

The published uses are otherwise sparse and literary:

a 2006 book on leadership describes a man with two paralysing fears, anablephobia, the fear of looking up, and agyrophobia, and asks the reader to imagine an inability to see what is ahead combined with an inability to step off the kerb
a 2008 self-help book on phobias offers James, aged 42, confused and embarrassed by his

Why the further reading names Szasz

Wikipedia's article on the fear of crossing streets lists one work in its further reading: Thomas Szasz's A Lexicon of Lunacy, published in 1993, at page 66.

Szasz spent a career arguing that psychiatric diagnoses are moral judgements dressed as medicine, and A Lexicon of Lunacy is a catalogue of the profession's coinages assembled as an indictment of them. An encyclopedia article about a phobia sending its readers to the best-known critic of phobia words is not a neutral gesture, and the article does not comment on it.

Common questions

Questions about Agyrophobia

Why is it missed in PTSD assessment?: Because avoidance at a kerb reads as caution, which is normal learning behaviour, rather than as fear, which is abnormal avoidance. The two look identical from outside, and after a road accident the caution is exactly what an assessor would expect to find, so the phobia sits inside the expected reaction and is never counted.
What does dromos mean?: Racetrack, in Greek, which is a striking thing for the root of a fear of ordinary streets to be. The alternative name agyrophobia comes from a different root, meaning a gathering or a place of assembly, and points at the crowd rather than the traffic.
How does limited mobility produce it?: Through anticipatory anxiety. Somebody with stiff-person syndrome may have attacks of increasing stiffness or spasm partway across, and expecting that is enough on its own. The form named as most specific in the literature is fear of crossing streets alone, which carries most of the weight in the post-accident route.
Why does it appear in autism?: Because the underlying task is harder. Some neurological conditions affect the ability to judge the speed of an approaching car, particularly in children, and a person who cannot reliably estimate how fast something is coming has a rational problem rather than a phobic one.
Is this fear learned or innate?: Learned, and it is the standard example. Adam Alter uses agyrophobia in 2013 alongside fear of the number thirteen as his two cases of phobias acquired through experience, setting both against claustrophobia, which he says appears to be innate. A road is a recent object and nobody is born wary of one.
What does Wikipedia list as further reading?: One work: Thomas Szasz's A Lexicon of Lunacy of 1993. Szasz argued for decades that psychiatric diagnoses are moral judgements in medical dress, and the book catalogues the profession's coinages as an indictment. An article about a phobia pointing readers at the best-known critic of phobia words is an unusual thing to find, and the article does not remark on it.

Added 2026-08-23 · Revised 2026-08-26