My 67-year-old grandmother taught me how to drive. True story.
The woman had the patience of a saint.
My parents didn’t step foot in a car that I was navigating until I was fully licensed. They didn’t teach any of my brothers how to drive either. We were all sent to Driver’s Ed, and logged our permit hours with our teacher or other family members in various public parking lots and on empty rural roads.
Needless to say, my mom won’t be teaching my daughter how to drive when that dreadful day comes. Rather, the job will likely fall to me.
I hadn’t really given it much thought given that my daughter is still 8 years away from getting her learner’s permit. However, a recent news story changed that.
Yesterday, I read about the tragedy that befell a mom who was innocently teaching her 15-year-old daughter how to drive the family car.
According to news reports, 40-year-old Kimberly Riggs turned over the car keys to her daughter in an empty church parking lot in Newport, Kentucky. The single mom stepped out of the car, so she could observe her daughter’s driving technique.
Shortly after the teen got behind the wheel, she mistakenly pressed down on the car’s accelerator instead of the brakes. The girl reportedly panicked and lost control of the car, hitting her mom and knocking her to the ground.
In a horrifying turn of events, the teen became hysterical and started driving uncontrollably in the lot. Police say the teen then knocked down a fence, hit the back of a nearby house, and then turned the vehicle around and slammed into her mother again, pinning the woman’s body against a fence.
“I yelled to her [Riggs] ‘Move!’ but it was too late. You would never think to see something like that,” a witness told a local TV news crew.
Riggs was tended to by various strangers who came running when they heard the crash. Unfortunately, she couldn’t be saved and died at a local hospital, shortly after the accident.
Riggs’s daughter was also treated for minor injuries… physical ones. The emotional pain that poor girl is suffering will likely take a lifetime to recover from.
Did you teach your teen how to drive or did you outsource the task?
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Teaching your teen to drive: Getting Started
Do you let your kids drive with friends?