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• Boy Injured Car Surfing on Mom's Ford

  This is one of those awful stories in which parents did something so reckless that you want to mercilessly berate them--but you can't because they have already learned their lesson the very hard way. In this case, a Utah mother discovered that car surfing is not the best way to bond with your kids. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 03:54 PM by Hannah Tennant-Moore with | with no comments Filed under: children, driving, dangerous, child abuse, safety, death, Utah, killed, son, fatal, car surfing, 10-year-old, critical injuries, seriously hurt, head, ford

• Honey, Could You Drive Mommy to the Bar?

  Most of us need a good stiff one every now and then. But generally, if one needs to get their drink on, they’ll find their own way to the local tavern to booze it up, not ask their twelve, yes TWELVE, year old daughter to do the driving...   Read More... Posted Aug 15 2008, 04:45 PM by SunnyChanel with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: driving, texas, crime, child endangerment, Jennifer Lynn Rosenberg

• The Biggest Driving Mistakes Moms Make

  As responsible parents, we'd never drive drunk, tailgate out of road rage, try to apply makeup or read while driving, right? But turns out some very common behaviors are just as dangerous. According to this story from MSNBC, a recent University of Utah study found that subjects using cell phones in a driving simulation had three accidents, while those who were drunk had none (although I take major issue with the story for this... Read More... Posted Jul 29 2008, 04:32 PM by Amy Kuras with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: driving, dangerous, cell phones, sexism, sippy cups, accidents, distracted driving, convenience

• No Empty Threats For This Mom

  When I was a kid, my mother told me and my sister that if we didn't clean our room before we left for vacay with our grandparents in Florida, she would throw away our toys.  We didn't, and she did - at least, according to my sister, who remembers this even though she's two years younger than I am.  I must have repressed the memory.   But that's small potatoes compared to Jane Hambleton, of Des Moines, Iowa, who is selling her poor 19-year-old son's car for the minor infraction of underage drinking.   Read More... Posted Jan 10 2008, 02:40 PM by Amy S.F. Lutz with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: driving, underage drinking, classifieds, Hambleton

• Some Things Transcend Time, Culture, and Language

  When I was a kid, my older brother and I rode every morning with our mom in the anient turquoise Chevy Nova to the school where she taught and we purportedly learned (yes, I had my mom as a teacher one year, and yes, I was scarred for life by that experience, but we won't talk about that now, but if you utter the words "teacher's pet" I will bite you). The drive involved a stretch of northern California highway where it was our pleasure to pass the time by counting VW bugs and convincing truck drivers to honk their horns for a couple of kids who never lost their sense of wonder that they could be seen through the windows of said Chevy Nova. I think you know what I'm talking about. You haven't forgotten about this, have you? Do your kids do this: Read More... Posted Jan 08 2008, 11:32 AM by Karen Murphy with | with no comments Filed under: youtube, driving, videos, truckers, honking

• So That Explains the Bald Tires

  When I was a teenager, I was fairly convinced that my mother either had my car bugged, or worked for the FBI, because no matter where I went or who I was with, she knew. I couldn't do anything without it getting back to her, not that I was trying to get away with anything terrible, but it just got to the point where I stopped trying because it wasn't worth the interrogation later. Now teenagers may have to deal with their parents literally bugging their cars. Some insurance companies are offering systems that can monitor how well freshly-minted teen drivers are handling Daddy's Escalade. The pilot program by American Family that Alisyn wrote about in March has been a smashing success (figuratively), and will be expanded to 18 states. The systems captures video, GPS data, stats on speed, braking, etc, and send it to the insurance company, where parents can later shave decades off their life at a time by watching the video on the web. Read More... Posted Dec 03 2007, 07:26 AM by Matt Wood with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: driving, teenagers, drivecam

• California to Drivers: No Smoking Around Kids

  Nothing takes me back to childhood more than the smell of a freshly lit cigarette. I spent countless hours of the first 16 years of my life sealed inside a Buick with my father, who would puff away on pack after pack of Winston Lights. Ashes settled like snowflakes in my hair, fiery airborne cherries burned holes in my shirts, the turbid, smoky air burrowed deep into the fibers of my winter coats, creating memories like Proustian cookies. Read More... Posted Oct 11 2007, 03:47 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: driving, laws, smoking, health and kids, secondhand smoke

• Wasted Mom Promotes 5-Year-Old Son To Designated Driver

  I know what you're thinking - this is another Britney Spears story - but alas, no.  What we have here may be the direct result of too many Brit stories floating around the blogosphere: The (inevitable?) if-she-can-do-that, surely- I-can-get-away-with-this! mentality. It would certainly be less shocking - pedestrian, even - if this was another tale of Britney's stupidity.  If only... Being whacked-out on sleeping pills and Percoset and itching for something to do, Holly Schnobrich promoted her 5-year-old son to the station of private chauffer - I can only assume she was heading out to get her head shaved - and shamelessly admitted doing so to local police.  A neighbor called the cops while watching Holly and her sons zoom out of their driveway.  Though Holly insisted that her son was "a good driver," she was arrested anyway, and booked for two counts of felony child endangerment and misdemeanor public intoxication. No word on whether or not she was booked for driving her children crazy.   Posted Sep 04 2007, 11:02 AM by Alisyn with | with no comments Filed under: driving, Britney Spears, parents behaving badly, drug addiction, holly schnobrich, percoset, kid as designated driver

• Life-Sized Kid Photo Signs Freak Speeding Drivers Out

  So you're blithely driving down the road, enjoying the day and the sunshine and maybe the tunes, and maybe you're going a bit faster than the speed limit, but so what, everyone does, and besides, you're in the groove, you're one with the road, you're WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??!  OMG IT'S A KID!  PRACTICALLY ON THE ROAD!!  I ALMOST HIT HIM! OMG! OMG! OMG! ...breathe... What the FUCK was that??!  Where does that kid get off, scaring me like that? What kid plays on the road like that? I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind! That kid should know NOT to play by the road like that, why, he could get KILLED or something! He's a...it's a...HEY! It's not real! It's a...cardboard cutout of a kid??! I swear, this guy is BRILLIANT. He makes life-size photographic cardboard cutouts of kids (interesting hobby), and noticed that drivers slowed waaaay down when he put a few at the side of the road to advertise them. Yeah, I'd slow down too! WTF!  Seriously, though, isn't this brilliant? At least, until drivers get conditioned to the idea, like we do with the Fake Highway Patrol Guy, but doesn't a part of you react with the brake pedal anyway? Even if you know it's a fake? And maybe slowing drivers down a bit will one day save a real kid's life.   Posted Jul 26 2007, 07:52 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: kids, driving, speeding, driving fast, cardboard cutouts

• Teaching Your Kid to Drive: White-Knuckling It

  I never knew just how tightly-wound I was until it came time to teach my older daughter to drive, and to be her passenger for the requisite number of training-hours so she could get her license.  Is it any wonder that after two years of this she still didn't have enough time logged in? Of course, by that time, at 18, she could bypass the underage driver regulations and get her license no matter how little experience she had (makes you feel so confident out on the road with them, doesn't it?).  At any rate, I can completely relate to the advice given by Mary Fagan at Motherwise, who basically advocates the Deter, Delay, and Deny technique of driver training: 1.  "Forget" to pick up the learner's permit application.  Forget the next day, too. 2.  Take forever locating important documents to complete said application.  Where is that birth certificate, anyway? 3.  Roll your eyes a lot and sigh (this shouldn't be difficult). 4.  Have your kid perform some dry runs in the car, taking an imaginary trip to the grocery store.  And then to the opposite coast.  Your kid will tire of this eventually and then quit asking you to teach them to drive. 5.  If they're still undaunted, practice driving in parking lots and cemeteries.  Places where no one (besides your kid) can hear you scream. 6.  If they still want to learn to drive after all this, hand them the number to your local driver's training course.  Which is how you planned it from the beginning.  Is your child still too young to drive?  Still in diapers?  No problem.  You might as well have that driver training course number handy anyway.  Believe me, you'll thank me later when it's not you who has to sit in a moving car with your kid behind the wheel.  Posted Apr 09 2007, 11:29 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: driving, teenagers, driver training

• Could Your Family Kill Its Car? This Guy's Did

  I was reading The Stranger's blog today, and came across this intriguing write-up about Alan Durning, who has reported on his family's attempt to go one year without owning a car. What's interesting about Durning's case is that most of these attempts at going carless are performed by single people, or by DINKs (dual income, no kids). And yet or the past year, Alan and his wife Amy have transported themselves and their two kids everywhere - work, the store, soccer practices - using a combination of pubic transit, FlexCar, and plain ol' walking and biking. How did they fair? Pretty well. Alan laments, though, that traveling without car ownership requires a lot of planning, and that most of the burden unfairly falls on his wife. Still, he's optimistic about the future, and sees more and more families trying to brave it without an auto. Given that my car is currently in the shop for thousands of dollars of repair work, I have to admit that this is a tempting challenge. Still, we live in the 'burbs. Ditching the car might be an option if we lived in downtown Manhattan. But I can't see spending several hours planning a trip to the store to buy vodka. Has anyone else in the 'burbs attempted the carless life? How many of you city dwellers manage family life without wheels? Posted Feb 21 2007, 09:34 AM by thezeroboss with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: children, kids, cars, driving, automobiles, flexcar, public transit, commuting

• Need More Quality Family Time? Get in the Car!

  Another page from the book of Tell Us Something We Don't Know:  parents spend a lot of time in the car with their kids!  SC Johnson (makers of handy things to have in the car with kids, like Ziploc bags and, uh Ziploc bags) created this semi-suspect survey to make us feel better about the time we spend driving around with our kids.  For one thing, it's like a part-time job - 90 percent of parents and guardians report spending up to 20 hours per week in their car with their children.  Yikes!  So that's where the time goes!  Most of that, the survey reported, was spent in going to doctor/dentist appointment and restaurants, and of course, schools.  I personally have spent over 2000 hours in the past 7 years in the car with my kids.  (ohhh, I think I'm getting carsick.  Pass me a Ziploc bag, willya?) Read More... Posted Feb 07 2007, 10:51 AM by Karen Murphy with | with no comments Filed under: cars, driving, families, sc johnson, automobiles, ziploc

• Astro-Diapers -- the Choice for Crazy Parents Everywhere

  What's the best adult use for baby items? Gin in a bottle? Pacifiers for ecstasy users? Breast milk as coffee cream? In my book, nothing tops the bizarre saga of Lisa Marie Nowak -- an astronaut who was just arrested on attempted first-degree murder charges for trying to kidnap a "romantic rival." Long story short, Nowak, a married mother of three, didn't like that another woman had the hots for her co-pilot. Knowing the other woman had just boarded a flight from Houston to Orlando, Nowak tried to beat the flight to confront the woman -- driving 800 miles and, the best part, wearing diapers so she didn't have to stop for bathroom breaks. Read More... Posted Feb 06 2007, 08:38 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: arrested, news, driving, mom, behavior, criminal behavior, bad parenting

• Teen Driver Crashes When Fake Baby Loses Its Shit

  In the ridiculously named town of Pleasanton, CA, they give high school kids "realistic-sounding baby dolls" to teach them what it's like to be a parent. This represents a quantum leap from when I was in high school in the late 80s. We had to carry around a raw egg for a few days, pretending it was our baby, and if the egg broke, the kid was a goner. But up in Pleasanton, the "realistic-sounding" doll thing wrought major havoc on one 17-year-old girl: she swerved her car into a freeway guardrail and slammed into a pickup truck after the doll in her care suddenly began to cry. "The teenager had just picked up the doll as part of a school project on responsible parenting minutes before the accident occurred Tuesday on I-580, said Steve Creel, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol." "No one was seriously injured in the crash, but the CHP will pursue charges because the girl was driving without a license, he said." I'm fascinated by this story because I wonder exactly how realistic this doll could have been to make the kid crash her Mini Cooper. According to the story, "The educational doll cries and wets itself and has a recording device that monitors how long it takes the doll's "parent" to respond to its crying." Cries and wets itself? That's it? Hardly realistic. If they wish to show these high schoolers what being a parent really looks like, they should add the following features: When the baby is in the car seat, make it poop. And make it one of those loose baby shits that pour out its diaper and drench the whole onesie in Hershey Squirt. Make the baby fascinated by everything dangerous, like electrical outlets and small shiny things and steak knives. Make the baby want to watch Sesame Street every waking minute of every god-damned day, so much so that the teenager will develop a white-hot hatred for that Elmo motherfucker and fantasize about scooping out his furry red trachea with a spork. Posted Dec 10 2006, 07:00 AM by Dad Gone Mad with | with no comments Filed under: doll, news, automobile, newborn, cars, driving, baby