'Breaking-In' a New Driver
You know, it's somewhat of a Catch 22... This teaching your kid to drive. In order to learn they MUST practice and in order to practice, they must drive your car, that's how the learning takes place. However, with learning comes making mistakes and when the reality of 'making mistakes' involves an automobile... Well, it can be an expensive lesson. Case in point, Exhibit A:
Yes, that's the front drivers side fender of my van... And no, that dent and scrape you see was not created by me but by my son, the guy with the learners permit. My husband thinks I'm crazy because I'm taking full responsibility for the damage. He says, "You weren't behind the wheel, he was! So why are you saying it's your fault?" Because, I had him drive to school before he was ready. You see there's two difficult moves a driver must make while driving to my kids school.
1. (the one I remembered) Involves making a U-turn on what can be considered, a busy thoroughfare.
2. (which I forgot) Involves taking a hard right into a driveway from aforementioned 'busy thoroughfare'... This driveway happens to be lined with several large pine trees, the first of which tangled with the front fender of my car when our new driver didn't cut the turn quite hard enough.
Now, I could've had him stop and back up, but that would've involved backing out onto that busy thoroughfare... Probably not a good idea. And since it appeared the only damage my van was going to incur was a few limb scrapings on my paint job, I figured it was the lesser of the two evils to keep moving forward. It was only after my son parked the vehicle that we saw the large dent a stubborn branch, refusing to give way, created on the front fender. So I'm taking the blame for my lack of foresight AND if it's any consolation, my boy did an Excellent job with that U-turn I was so worried about.
It's been said that if one makes their mistakes early on in a process that this is a good thing. It gets the bad stuff out of the way early so one can move on from that point to great success... Man, I hope that's true, because Body Shops can be expensive.*
Note: In light of the fact that my boy will be practicing driving with my car for a while, I will not be so foolish as to spend money fixing the dent on my van, as I'm sure there's a chance for more driving 'experience' to take place.
Yes, that's the front drivers side fender of my van... And no, that dent and scrape you see was not created by me but by my son, the guy with the learners permit. My husband thinks I'm crazy because I'm taking full responsibility for the damage. He says, "You weren't behind the wheel, he was! So why are you saying it's your fault?" Because, I had him drive to school before he was ready. You see there's two difficult moves a driver must make while driving to my kids school.
1. (the one I remembered) Involves making a U-turn on what can be considered, a busy thoroughfare.
2. (which I forgot) Involves taking a hard right into a driveway from aforementioned 'busy thoroughfare'... This driveway happens to be lined with several large pine trees, the first of which tangled with the front fender of my car when our new driver didn't cut the turn quite hard enough.
Now, I could've had him stop and back up, but that would've involved backing out onto that busy thoroughfare... Probably not a good idea. And since it appeared the only damage my van was going to incur was a few limb scrapings on my paint job, I figured it was the lesser of the two evils to keep moving forward. It was only after my son parked the vehicle that we saw the large dent a stubborn branch, refusing to give way, created on the front fender. So I'm taking the blame for my lack of foresight AND if it's any consolation, my boy did an Excellent job with that U-turn I was so worried about.
It's been said that if one makes their mistakes early on in a process that this is a good thing. It gets the bad stuff out of the way early so one can move on from that point to great success... Man, I hope that's true, because Body Shops can be expensive.*
Note: In light of the fact that my boy will be practicing driving with my car for a while, I will not be so foolish as to spend money fixing the dent on my van, as I'm sure there's a chance for more driving 'experience' to take place.
posted by EmBee at 12:23 PM
4 Comments:
eesh, my oldest just got her permit too......we can hold our breaths together....
I'm so glad that is the ONLY damage that occured..it sounds like your son learned a valuable lesson that something as simple as a tree branch can cause a good amount of damage. He will be more careful in the future you can bet on it, but it was a good mistake to learn this early in the game too. You sound like such a patient mom.
Oh man....my youngest son came into my room again yesterday adn begged me to take him to the dmv after school today to get his learners permit. sigh.... I've put him off for over 6 months because I'm so nervous about him driving here in DC. When we lived in CT, my oldest boy had is permit on the day of his 16th birthday.
This post is a reminder for me..
Looks like we're all in this together girls... What we really need is to get together for stiff drink and a laugh! 'Til then, let's just keep blogging about our experiences!
P.S. Stacie, we're headed down to Falls Church for a long weekend and I know EXACTLY what you mean... There's NO WAY my son will be driving in that area any time soon.
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