I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t ready. I thought I was, but when I walked into the DMV with each of my kids to take their permit test, all the emotions hit me like a freight train. “She is not ready to drive; she is still my baby girl. Who decided 16-year-olds are ready to drive a huge machine that can kill? Why did this happen so fast? What do I need to do?”
My mental freakout led me to my happy place: looking at finances. With a newly permitted driver, we decided to review our insurance. We raised our deductible to counteract the rise in our rates. When we raised our deductible to $1,000, our rate stayed the same with our new teen driver. We also looked into an umbrella policy to cover us in case someone sued our kids because of an accident.
Once those changes were in place, I could start teaching each one to drive. Finding a large, empty parking lot was the hardest part. Practice hours flew by. Then came driver’s education classes. Each state has different requirements, and some states won’t allow drivers with permits to drive within their borders. Trying to remember which state had which laws was something I made my kids figure out. As we traveled during summer breaks, we needed to avoid breaking the law.
Slowly, each child learned how to drive, parallel park, fill up the fluids, and change a tire. These skills helped each of them. All have had cars that burn oil and have flat tires. They try to avoid parallel parking, but don’t we all!
Once they passed their driver’s education and completed the necessary hours of practice, my husband took each of them to get their license. All three started driving in Kansas. My husband loved taking them out of school to get their licenses. After the DMV, he would take them out for ice cream. He realized they were adults now.
To help with the cost of gas, each child had to put 5 gallons in the car once a month and show us the receipt. But before we even let them drive without us, we required them to give us $1,000 (our deductible). We put that into a savings account in their name., so they would have the deductible to use in the event of an accident. If they used the deductible, they couldn’t drive our cars until they replenished the $1,000.
When a deer jumped onto the hood of our car in the middle of the woods, it smashed the windshield and broke a headlight. My daughter used her “hard-earned” money to fix the windscreen rather than touch the $1,000. She returned to the accident site to ensure the deer was okay. She had never found the deer but decided it was alive.
Even now, all my kids keep their deductible in a savings account ready for emergencies. They know that is the minimum they should save.
How do you encourage your kids to prepare for driving-related emergencies?