[notfarnow]

...to suggest your wife take some driver's ed?

Bless her soul, she's a wonderful woman and I'm truly lucky to have her. But, she is a horrible driver. She watches out for other cars, but is completely oblivious to road surface, and the "edges" of the roads. She doesn't get into collisions with other cars, but she is forever hitting MASSIVE potholes, catching curbs, getting fetched up in driveways. Just recently I was following her home, and despite several signs for construction and bumps, she didn't slow down and went into a construction zone at 100km/hr, going off a 6" lip where the asphalt ends, then hitting the lip where it starts again. Bent 2 wheels. Then this morning I get in the car and it pulls hard to the right and sounds like hell. Every bump is followed by a hard KATHUNK KATHUNK.

This has been going on for ages, and we joke about it pretty light heartedly... but man it gets expensive. We rarely go 3 months without needing an alignment, and we are constantly buying tires, getting front end work done, etc. I have never seen anything like it really. The garage just thinks it's hilarious, and they call me to joke about it when the car is in there.

Lately I've been trying to G E N T L Y point out some habits, like scanning the road for potholes, looking further ahead, choosing a path BEFORE putting it in gear to back up... but it's really tough to have a conversation like that without making her defensive.

I really think she'd benefit from some driver's ed, where a paid instructor could maybe point her in the right direction. I have never breathed a word about it, because I know if I do it wrong, I'll never be able to bring it up again.

Surely someone else out there goes through this. Please, please help me before I just say "screw it" and buy her a $1000 Cavalier.