Kids

I have two sons, one is mine from a previous marriage and the other is my wifes son from a previous marriage. My son will be 17 next month and hers turned 17 in January. I love them both dearly. For the most part, they are good kids. Both of them just recently started driving, which has been a really stressful ordeal. Any parent with kids eventually goes through this stage.

Both of them had vehicles given to them, and all we asked is that they pay the insurance.

Anyway, my son has turned out to be possibly the worst driver ever. On the third day he was driving, he had an accident in which he was behind a new Chrysler 300C and accidently hit the gas instead of the brake and rear-ended the car - $800 damage to the 300C. On the 2nd week, he got a ticket for having his brake lights out, but got it dismissed after replacing a blown fuse. On the third week, he was driving to school and a truck in front of him had a blowout, he swirved to avoid the debris and collided with another car. Fortunately it was another young driver and no claims were made on insurance.

He did OK for about a month, then got a speeding ticket for going 9MPH over the limit in a school zone - $240.

He was repeatedly told NOT to have any friends riding with him, and he had a curfew of 11:00PM. I explained to him that with his increasingly bad driving record, that having passengers was a BAD idea because we could be liable for them if he were to have an accident, etc. Well, he goes to visit his mother in a town about 30 miles away every other weekend and I guess he assumed my rules didn't apply when he was visiting his mom...

Last Sunday morning, I got a call from his mother at 2:30AM. She tells me that he has crashed and totaled his car. Not only that, he also had 3 friends with him and they were out at 2AM when the crash happened. WHAT THE F**K???

Oh, and that's not all...

He had fishtailed, overcorrected, and again hit the accelerator instead of the brake and demolished a Southwestern Bell telephone switch box, and part of a fence as well! The car ended up on top of the telephone switch box, and nearly flipped over. I think he may have done less damage had he run into a Corvette! His car was totaled and he was cited for wreckless driving. It was a 1989 Firebird, and I still owe over $2000 on it. He had liability only so Im still stuck with the bill for the next few years.

His mother and I took them all to the Emergency room at the local hospital, and fortunately nobody was seriously injured. Only small cuts from broken glass and perhaps a few bruises.

This was possibly THE most stressful night of my entire life.

Total damage and cost:

Car- $2,400

Driving citations- $400

Fence- $300 approx

Phone switch- $18,000

Towing- $150

Hospital bills- $3,000 approx

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Total $24,250

Not to mention the amount my insurance premium will probably increase...

The only good that came from it all is knowing that the kid won't be driving again any time soon.

I hope he learned some valuable lessons from this. He had been driving for only 3 months, and lost his car and driving privalages for a long, long time, But at least he and his friends walked away from this accident with their lives and minimal injuries.