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their car. I keep slamming my foot down as if there was one in my car, but so far, it has been ineffective.
I could use an extra steering wheel as well. My son has a terrifying habit of drifting from one side of the road to the other. When I tell him to stay straight, he says, "Define 'straight'."
His driver education teacher stressed adjusting the mirrors before the student starts the car. This is difficult to do when the mirrors on the car are operated electronically. This presented a frustrating Catch 22 for my son, who couldn't be persuaded to start the car first. So
do I have to buy another car? Should we hack the electronics on the car? Or should we simply sit in the driveway until the car decides to cooperate?
As the parent of a new driver, you are not only required to put your very life into the hands of your squirrelly, know-it-all teenager, you are also required to be calm and rational at all times while he is attempting to kill you both.
Someone has to be calm and rational, though. If he is gripping the steering wheel and yelling "AAAHHHH!!!!" every time a semi approaches from the other direction, your scream of terror will not only be redundant, but it will not be helpful
at all. Plus, it won't stop the car from hitting the semi, which is even more terrifying.
One of the rules for a learner's permit states that a licensed adult driver has to be in the passenger's seat. But it doesn't say that person has to be conscious. So
that's an option, I guess.
After much thought, I decided that a better option to stay calm, rational, and conscious would be to simply pretend the car was impervious to accidents and that it could practically drive itself. Is that rational? I don't know for sure, but it's best not to examine that question while my son still needs a co-pilot.
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