The nightmare of teaching my teenage daughter to drive

This morning I opened my car insurance renewal notice and quietly cheered. It’s gone up by $3500, and I couldn’t be happier.

Yes, you read that right – I really am delighted.

This extortionate increase is because my 18-year-old daughter, Izzy, is on the policy as a learner driver for the second year running.

Initially, she only added $585 to the cost but premiums have rocketed, especially for young drivers. I haven’t budgeted for this, so her name needs to be removed.

The timing’s perfect. Now, I can put on a sad face and tell Izzy I can’t take her out to practise in my car any more for purely fiscal reasons.

When the truth is, I’ve had enough of putting my life into her utterly incapable hands every time she places them on the steering wheel of my little Fiat 500. My shredded nerves can’t take trying to teach her any more.

Izzy truly is a terrible driver.

Despite 60 hours of formal tuition, costing me and her father $4100 so far, none of her driving instructors have put her in for a test yet.

Note instructors plural – she recently sacked her fourth.

Grounds for dismissal were the same each time: “They’re rubbish at teaching people to drive”.

And yet, the endless success stories these apparent charlatans post on Facebook – with pictures of beaming teenagers displaying their pass certificates – would suggest otherwise.

Izzy won’t elaborate on her scathing appraisals. But if her instructors’ experiences of teaching her were half as horrible as mine, they’d have been glad to get the boot.

I’ve always been chief cheerleader to my daughter’s every endeavour. Until now.

Because when it comes to driving, I know first-hand that she’s a menace on the roads.

For starters, she’s dozy. She seems oblivious to red lights until I start yelling that we’re approaching one. And she routinely forgets to put on the handbrake; twice she’s rolled back into another car, thankfully gently enough not to damage them.

Izzy is adamant it’s fine to slow down with your gears (even when they’re screaming in protest) and that the two-second rule (meant to ensure you drive at a safe distance from the car in front of you) is ‘a bit random’.

One time, I screamed because she ploughed onto a roundabout without looking; she glared at me and said it was all my fault because my ‘being dramatic’ had put her off.

When I pointed out I’d only screamed as another car swerved to avoid us, not before, she pulled over and said she wouldn’t drive anywhere until I apologised for ‘stressing her out’.

Izzy sounds like a horror, I know.

She’s normally a really humble, sweet girl – but when she fires up that engine she turns into a monster; one whose faith in their abilities doesn’t remotely match with reality.

When she was having formal lessons, I used to take her out once every couple of weeks, which I could just about cope with, for practice. But since this latest sacking, she’s between instructors, so for the past month we’ve gone out together most days.

That was a mad idea, but I was desperate for her to improve enough to sit and pass her test.

Her independence and my freedom from ferrying her around depend on it.

But this renewal notice coincides with me realising I’m just not up to the job. She needs someone with stronger nerves – and dual controls.

The final straw came last week.

We live in a small village, with a quiet housing estate in the centre where I’ve been starting each lesson so she can warm up without much traffic around.

The problem is, it turns out a boy she likes lives there who was enjoying his last days at home before returning to university after the long summer break.

When we drove past him walking towards his house last week she lost her mind - and control of the car. I had to grab the wheel to avoid her mounting the pavement and mowing him down.

Afterwards, her dad joked that there are better ways to sweep the boy you fancy off his feet. I was still too traumatised to laugh.

And, yes, I have asked my husband to take over from me as teacher.

“Absolutely not,” he replied.

“I’ve seen the state you come home in; I’m not putting myself through that.”

Now, thanks to this insurance renewal quote, I don’t have to either.

You might wonder, why not just tell Izzy the truth – admit that I hate being in a car with her at the wheel.

But lying feels kinder. After all, I’m her mum, the one person who’s supposed to be so emotionally biased towards her I’m blinded by her brilliance at anything she turns her mind to.

If I tell Izzy she’s awful at this then it could knock her confidence and make her give up.

And then I’ll have to taxi her around forever more.

This way, I can use the cash to sign her up for more (many more) professional lessons and pay danger money to someone much braver than me.

* Names have been changed.