I have been gone for several days, not gone from my home but gone from blogging. I have been very busy.
Here is the story. I have a 17yr old son. He got his learners permit when he was 15yr 2 months, so as you can tell he is in no hurry. As a matter of fact, I kinda had to push him to get his permit. He passed the written test no problem. However he could careless about driving. He drove the first couple of weeks but probably my hollering at him for doing stupid things deterred him from driving. He would drive every once in a while but only because we made him do it. I tried having him drive to school, but we are usually running right on time or a bit behind and it was just to stressful for me, making it bad for him so I would end up driving (not that my son would get into the drivers seat without being told), plus he would be eating his breakfast half the time on the way. He went for MONTHS without driving and he just didn't care. In the state of NC you have to have your learners permit for a full year before you can even try to get your license. He got his permit in March of 2006. Finally this summer he started driving again.
We looked into how much it would cost to insure him as an occasional driver on both our vehicles. It would raise our rates over $800 a year. If we got a third car we would have to have him be a primary driver on one, again raising our rates. However after a year of him being accident free it would cut in half. And a year after that it would not be nearly as much.
In June I got the new Odyessy, as a matter of fact I think it was June 22, 2008. We went on a camping trip that next week and then 2 weeks later I urged my son to get his license. He got it on July 7th, I think....Using my new van of course. His dads car is a Saturn SL, standard shift with no working AC so he can't really drive it, plus it has 250,000+ miles on it.
My son has taken the van out only a few times. He is not your typical teenager that is just looking for an excuse to drive. He hasn't asked to go anywhere in my van, no movies nothing. I MADE him drive to the school (4 miles away) to get his schedule and I think he had driven to the store (1.5 Miles away) twice. Every time we would go out to do a secret shop (yes the kids come with me because they want to) or I would just go on a CVS, WAGS, HT, FL, LF shopping spree he would drive us. I have gotten better and I am not as anxious with him driving. He really is a good driver....
We decide that since my eldest son will have to drive to his college classes he WILL need a vehicle. IIII started looking August 1st. I became obsessed with this and have done tons of research on line. I have been looking at vehicles to see what they are worth. I am thinking we will spend no more than $5000 on a vehicle for him. Husband agrees, and we go out on Saturday. He hates car shopping. We go to the VW dealer, and now my husband is considering financing a vehicle. WHAT???? Anyway after a test drive he has had enough. I spend all of Sunday looking on line. I decided Monday I will go look. I have son drive me and his brothers (dad is at work) up to Hickory and back. I swing by a store to buy some inventory to make it a tax write off. We come back through Lincolnton where there are a ton of used car lots. I didn't stop anywhere other than ONE place in Hickory to look at vehicles.
August 5th my computer suddenly shut off. I was totally freaking out. I had 2 secret shops to do and my computer has a lot of stuff tied into it, 2 other computers print from my printer, requiring my computer to be on not to mention all my Ebay inventory that was NOT backed up. I took my computer to the local Joe and they said they would get right to it. Eldest son decides he wants to buy a laptop and I decide I will buy an external hard drive for my Ebay program and important things that should have been backed up right along. I drop off my computer and they say they will get right to it and call me when they find out what is wrong. We are now on our way to do the 2 secret shops I have scheduled. We get to a stop light and there is a Ford F-150 in front of us. The light turns green and the truck goes forward and so does my son. Well the driver of the truck must not have been paying attention and suddenly brakes and swerves off to the left to avoid hitting the cars in front of him. I see what is going on, and it is becoming apparent we are NOT going to be able to stop! I tell him to swerve and instead of swerving to the Left and turning off the road he kinda swerved the other way where cars were and he could only go so far. SO we ended up hitting the truck, doing about $3000 worth of damage to my new van.
This accident was a good example of inexperience causing an accident. Even though I was telling my son what to do you have to figure in reaction time. My reaction time, then I have to tell him what to do then he has to react! I could have avoided this accident, most experienced drivers could have avoided the accident.
So I then spent from Noon that day until that night taking care of accident things, like insurance, finding out where my vehicle was towed, finding a rental, getting the rental, keeping my husband informed, picking up my husband, going to the wrecker place to get the rest of what I should have gotten out of my van, then to top it off we had a pool meeting that night too. The next day was SUPPOSED to be the day that my husband had arranged to take off so we could look for a car (that was planned earlier that week before the accident). We spent that morning, going to the van signing papers at the body shop. Then husband finally decides to call the insurance company to ask the same questions I did a week prior plus what is going to happen with our insurance rates now. At 12:30 we finally can start looking at used vehicles. I have spent this whole week looking at cars. I haven't even been SHOPPING except for one secret shop where I had to buy 4 things and that was all I got.
