Wife is a menace on the road...what to do?

[hondansx]

Sign her to to car insurance that monitors her driving to dictate the cost?

Serious question - how strong is a relationship if they don't take on board serious concerns for your (singluar and plural) safety?

[R_U_LOCAL]

Another suggestion OP, but this is quite subtle - bear with me.

Tell her you're feeling like your driving has deteriorated. Tell her you're concerned that, as you're getting older, you feel less confident and that you're not as safe as you used to be.

Then book yourself on some form of advanced course - IAM will be perfect for this purpose.

Once you've had a few sessions or lessons, start dropping a few comments in whilst you're driving (not whilst she's driving for now). Tell her that your instructor has told you to drive closer to the nearside, or to be smoother and more progressive with the brakes, or to look further ahead and plan your moves in advance. The secret is to ensure that these points (and your demonstration of the improvements it has made in your driving) actually relate to her driving faults, but without it being too obvious.

Firstly, she won't argue with these points, because they realate to your driving and not hers. Secondly, she won't argue with these points because they have been made by your instructor, rather than by you. She will readily accept that the instructor is a qualified expert and knows much better than her.

It's a bit of a longer game this one, but she isn't crashing on a weekly basis at the moment, so it might be worth a try. And you'll get some advanced instruction to boot too.

[ecsrobin]

derin100 said:

B) Driving far too close to vehicles in front and braking very late and harshly such that in the intervening few seconds one sits and wonders: "Is she going to brake at all?......BRAKE!!!!!

I find this is a female trait (and my mate Richard who whilst he has a mrs I believe he doesn't have a penis) whenever I'm in a car with a female driver I find myself pushing my foot down as if it's on the brake pedal and bracing up for impact.

[anonymous-user]

That entire post could so easily be about my lovely, charming, soon to be ex-wife. Any criticism or comment is rewarded with such an aggressive response I tried to generally not say anything, and then I realised that's how my soon to be ex father in law ended up being such a worn down little nub of a man and traded her in. She drives a Volvo V70 T5 and really has no business at all driving such a large, heavy and powerful car. At least I know when she does inevitably have a massive crash my kids might be OK, but god help the poor fker she smashes into :-(

[antspants]

Mmmm, I'm going to reorder some bits of the OP just to try and make some sense of this...

derin100 said:

I did buy her a wheel-barrow for her 40th!

Who says romance is dead?

derin100 said:

I always notice her. She rarely sees me!

No she ignores you because of the st birthday present.

derin100 said:

Scare the living daylights out of me...

derin100 said:

the minimum impact speed would be at least 120mph...

derin100 said:

lest seven years later you wake-up from a coma...or worse...don't wake up at all.

derin100 said:

Pray?

A wheel barrow You're lucky to still be with us, yes I'd start praying

[Durzel]

this thread.

Just to add some balance I found myself behind a blonde girl in a Peugeot 207 yesterday and she was tearing it around the country lanes almost leaving me for dead, and I was actually trying to keep up. I even got a wave after I had to turn off. I'm in love!

[Pit Pony]

supersingle said:

Women cannot take critisism. It doesn't matter what it's about, it just unleashes the mental. The path of least resistance is to let her get on with it.

Unless you are seen to criticise yourself "I'm such a wimp, and when you get so close to the car in front, I st myself. Because I'm a really bad passenger"

[poing]

derin100 said:

Now that I like! Very novel approach...maybe even combine that with the dash-cam thing as described above? We could be on to something here!

First of all replicate all the same faults to try to make her feel comfortable...I predict limited if any success with this actual part as I doubt she'd really notice...but then play it back to her from the dash cam and say: "Can you spot the really bad things I was doing here?"

She probably would still get an "Unclassified Grade" in that exam but then I could go back through it and point them out myself to her and then say these are some of the things she does...plus I'm only pointing them out because I'm serious concerned and don't want her to get hurt? Thus bring in the emotional blackmail angle as suggested above?

We may have cracked it!

(Although, I fear with all of the above, we may still be sailing periliously close to the "Rocks of Advise Equals Criticsm" ? And then the whole thing falls down!)

How incredibly rational, can I assume you have a comfy couch?

[Captainawesome]

Mr Gearchange said:

derin100 said:

I have a wife.

Just distilling it down to its essence

This made me genuinely LOL

[Devil2575]

Man up and be honest. If it causes a row so what, sometimes rows are inevitable. A joint IAM assessment is a good idea, that way you're not asking her to just take your word for it.

Well done though, you've given the sexist plonkers on PH something to talk about.

[oldchris]

derin100 said:

oldchris said:

This is my wife to a tee, she used to be a great driver, fast and confident, in fact she taught me to drive!But now she is frightening, and will not be told. Whilst on holiday she drove my Freelander down tight country lanes on the cruise control, we were heading into blind bends totaly out of control!
She leaves braking to the last moment and is proud of the fact she can't navigate.
Her best one was towing the caravan down the A14 in the pouring rain at 80mph.
Most of our rows are about driving as she has a total lack of awareness of other traffic then has a go when I "advise" her on what other drivers are doing.
She is a great wife and a realy nice person. butbehind the wheel a total nightmare !!
In here defence her driving changed after having a huge accident in my CRV, cartwheeling it, hitting a tree then ending up ontop of a hedge. Whist she was not injured physicaly I think here confidence has been affected and she iso longer relaxed behind the wheel. It's a shame as I used to enjoy being a passenger when she drove.

Chris

But in your case the unfortunate accident seems to have made her a more aggressive/wild driver?

She's not aggrssive, it's more the lack of awareness / mechanical sympathy that concerns me, along with the inability to take crititsm of any sort. She wants me to tell her what road to take, what lane to be in even when to fill up with fuel(??) but if I tell her she,s too close to the kerb, or express concern that she's driven into another pot hole then I'm in the wrong. I washed her car today,(it's six months old & I have hardly ever driven it) and showed her all the stone chips on the front, "I didn't do them" was the instant reply, like it's all my fault. I have finaly got her out of the middle lane of the motorway, which has taken ages, so perhaps there is hope

[Mr Gearchange]

Captainawesome said:

Mr Gearchange said:

derin100 said:

I have a wife.

Just distilling it down to its essence

This made me genuinely LOL

I know the pain all too well.

When I bought an A8 it was the first auto my wife had ever driven.
We went out for a familiarisation drive where I, sat in the passenger seat, would involuntarily nut the dash each time we came to a standstill.

My wife insisted that "the brakes are too sharp" and got the right hump that each cruise to a halt would invariably be accompanied by my headbutting the car interior and exclaiming "for fks sake love"

After she had told me that I was a 'wker' and that she "fking hated" me for taking exception to each emergency stop, I worked out that she had suddenly adopted left foot braking for the first time in 18 years of driving.

Me: 'Are you braking with your left foot?'
Her: 'Yes'
Me: 'Why'
Her: 'because the car only has two pedals'

Once I disabused her of the notion that you had to LFB in an auto because the number of pedals matched the number of feet you possess I laughed. Hard. She reasserted that I was a "wker" and we continued our journey.

[Pesty]

Welcome to my world.

Motorway.

Me all cars in front are braking
Her I know( still accelerating)
Me well ease off then
Her I know
Me start braking
Her I know
Me well do it then
Her yes
Me fking stop
Her emergency stop

Normal roads
Me lights red
Her I know
Me slow down then
Her I know.
Me faking stop stop now!!!!!!!! Brake brake brake
Her what? (Sails through red light ) What you on about about don't shout at me.

[Mr2Mike]

supersingle said:

Women cannot take critisism. It doesn't matter what it's about, it just unleashes the mental.

As sexist and chauvinistic as it sounds, you have a valid point. My wife is a reasonably ok driver to be fair, but when I'm in the passenger seat I have two options: 1) shut the fk up 2) endure days of frosty silence.

And yet the insurance companies love them, or at least used to until one of their many weapons of discrimination was taken away.

Edited by Mr2Mike on Monday 22 September 22:57

[WilliamWoollard]

They all do that, sir.

[Slidingpillar]

Mr Gearchange said:

Me: 'Are you braking with your left foot?'
Her: 'Yes'
Me: 'Why'
Her: 'because the car only has two pedals'

Once I disabused her of the notion that you had to LFB in an auto because the number of pedals matched the number of feet you possess I laughed. Hard. She reasserted that I was a "wker" and we continued our journey.

Hmm, my vintage car has two pedals, left one is the clutch and right one is the back brake. Front brakes are on a lever, and the throttle is a lever on the steering wheel. Should confuse her nicely...

[mybrainhurts]

derin100 said:

Wife is a menace on the road...what to do?

[Blakewater]

Slidingpillar said:

Hmm, my vintage car has two pedals, left one is the clutch and right one is the back brake. Front brakes are on a lever, and the throttle is a lever on the steering wheel. Should confuse her nicely...

Might be a silly question, but how the heck to you steer? With your teeth?

[Slidingpillar]

Blakewater said:

Might be a silly question, but how the heck to you steer? With your teeth?

With the steering wheel! Bit I didn't tell you though is lock to lock is only 270 degrees, so the hand that operates the throttle doesn't need to move position. Sure, it's heavy compared to a modern tin box, but not a real problem.

[TooMany2cvs]

Slidingpillar said:

Hmm, my vintage car has two pedals, left one is the clutch and right one is the back brake. Front brakes are on a lever, and the throttle is a lever on the steering wheel. Should confuse her nicely...

Finally. A proper use for a dashcam.