Well, I would hope the threat would be enough to dissuade them, because kids listen to their parents, right? Second, you are absolutely right I wouldn’t know if they sent out a text once while waiting at a red light. However, if they are continually doing so, the fact our lives interact so much means I’d spot them doing it eventually. Then yeah, yelling, crying, and slamming of doors. Better the noise than the silence.
Yeah, distracted driving is a real thing. We had that talk after the last accident and she was candid with me about what happened. We were all very lucky there was only property damage. At this point, I don’t think that was the issue with this accident. Like you say, it could have been either one at fault, or some combination of both. Fortunately the damage is minor. My biggest beef is with myself for accepting someone else’s assessment of the situation, without first assessing the third party or the situation itself.
You may be right about it not being a premeditated scam. I am thinking it was more of an opportunistic kind of thing. I am not sure how to prepare my daughter for this sort of thing in the future. I wish she would have assumed she was a more capable driver in the aftermath of this accident, but I think the earlier accident has conditioned her in the opposite way.
Thanks, Greatatlantic, for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
In my case, I got a text, and then a few seconds later, I got a tearful call.
Not this accident, but a different one. It is hard to know. I feel lucky to have escaped easily.
Of course they do. My dad gave me a lot of sound advice that I knew was sound but if it differed with what I wanted at the moment, I often ignored it. Sadly, sometimes we need to experience things to really learn.
I’m not so much scared of the young woman driving and texting as I am of her getting a notification and taking her eye off the road long enough to check it. Some times these kids have texted someone and they are desperate to get whatever the reply is. I’ve seen them refresh and then 20 seconds later refresh again, etc., just hoping the reply is there.
You mean your daughter was texting you when she had the accident? Yikes, no getting around that one.
In all the confusion, did you talk to Doug after the meeting? Did they actually go to him and get that estimate or did they lie about that?
Yeah, that was my immediate question as well.
ps: Get your daughter a dash cam. They’re pretty inexpensive and if it saves you $3k in the next accident then it’s well worth it!
I have 2 of these, one forward and one rear, they work great.
As a bonus, you can pour yourself a whiskey and nervously watch the dash cam footage of her driving around, narrowly missing pedestrians, almost rear ending people, etc. Who needs a Netflix drama when you can watch your kids drive?
Truth. She routinely backs into the garbage bins on trash days. I actually have it on video, it happens so regularly.
I was going to say, hopefully your daughter won’t look at the camera as a method of keeping tabs on her, but then I figured the thread didn’t need additional drama. And then I re-figured what the hell.
Wow if I’d backed into our trash cans my dad would have said, “That’ll be a car next time, give me your keys and we’ll start lessons again next weekend.”
Edit: Sorry, not trying to sound judgey. Kids are tough.
Clearly I have some things to think about when/if my daughter starts driving in 4 years.
Self-driving cars will be mass-market by then, don’t worry about it.
Without injury in many places the cops simply won’t respond to or at least won’t prioritize in any way a fender bender, especially one that isn’t blocking traffic.
And auto repair of even something minor nowadays can be expensive.
I have one daughter who has trashed two vehicles (she is now 28) and one who has driven for 8 years and never had any problem. You never know.
You joke (I think?), but I’ve had this conversation with my 7 ½ year old. I’ve said, “Good odds you’ll never have to learn to drive if you don’t want to.” and she responded quite positively to the idea. I guess because she’s used to being chauffeured around by me!
The main problem with self-driving cars that make me think mass adoption is at least 10 years out, are the roads I see outside today. In Montreal, we’ve had successive snowfalls, with thawing, and then freezing rain. Painted street lines are invisible in many, many places, as they’re covered in ice and snow. And car driving is completely screwy right now, as you need to factor in much longer braking times on the side streets due to incomplete snow removal leading to lots and lots of ice. To my knowledge, none of the companies working on self-driving cars have dared to take them someplace like Montreal in the winter.
Central MN is testing self-driving ugly short busses in winter.
Not quite Montreal, but if bot can make it here, bot can make it anywhere.