Anonymous wrote:How about you drive your own kid for a change? These people did you a favor. And grow some thick skin.

Joking, right? When I drive someone else's child I am even more careful than usual. Last thing I want to do is tell my friend or neighbor I hurt or killed their child. Or even have their child tell them I got pulled over by a cop.

Anonymous wrote:How about you drive your own kid for a change? These people did you a favor. And grow some thick skin.

Ok, distracted deadly dad...

How about you drive your own kid for a change? These people did you a favor. And grow some thick skin.

Lots of good advice above.

Just want to add that your daughter ROCKS!

Seriously, good for her for being assertive and speaking up to an adult who was putting her safety at risk. That's fantastic!

So . . . any advice for the rest of us on specific things you may have done as a parent that helped get her to that point? I hope I'm raising my kids to be the same way, and I'd welcome any tips or advice you might have.

Your daughter is amazing and tell her that most of us here think that and applaud her

Google "baby killed in Ashburn". Guy looking at his phone. Your daughter rocks OP. Good for her for speaking out. The driver should have been embarrassed. He was putting lives in danger.

Anonymous wrote:Your DD was right and brave to speak up. The driver is a jerk. And I don't think there's anything further you can or should do, other than never letting her ride with that driver again.

Agree completely. We need more kids like that.

BTW, in Va. drivers under 18 cannot have more than one other kid in the car.

You should be very proud of your daughter. I am sending this thread link to my DH, who thinks it is ok to text and drive. His excuse is that DC is stop and go traffic and he is stuck in traffic. My children and I will stop him from doing this when he does it in front of us. But, we do not think that he stops when he is alone. So, people of DCUM beware - there are many distracted drivers in DC and you are not safe on the beltway!

I wish and hope that you have a really nice and polite conversation with this man and his family about how dangerous this is. Tell them that you will inform other parents who carpool with them about it too, if this kind of behavior does not stop. If someone does this to my DH and calls him out on this behavior I will be thrilled.

Let me make it very clear that I love my husband because he is the most giving and emphatic man. Still, this is a blindspot for him and he does not realize how painful it is for the rest of his family to think that he is a distracted middle-aged driver, who just does not have the reflexes in him to not get into an accident.

Send a copy of this, signed "Hopefully, Safety Girl and Her Enlightened Family"

You will be doing your daughter a favor to teach her a few things about the way the world works. First, it is right to stand up and say something when you see something wrong. She did the right thing here speaking up. The second is that there will always be jerks out there who don't do the right thing (e.g. texting dad) and those who will respond poorly when you call attention to something wrong. It doesn't make it wrong to do what she did and she should not be ashamed even from a mocking retort. In a way, she embarrassed the dad by pointing out he was doing something wrong and dangerous and his poor response was to try and embarrass her back. So, teach her to have more confidence in knowing right from wrong and not to back down from jerks who don't.

If I had been in her shoes, I probably would have responded to "safety girl" with "Just trying not to become another teenage statistic." Not that I would teach my teen to say something like that, just my own personal reaction .

I wouldn't knowingly let my child be in a car with someone who texts. My almost 10 year old will speak up, and ask to pls not text while driving. Texting and driving causes accidents and deaths and is 100% preventable.

The father responded off the cuff in a defensive way - poor manners, definitely, but nothing to escalate, because it's not going to help anything, OP.

The only thing you can do is to celebrate your daughter's clear thinking and to have a different carpool ride for the future. When asked, both she and you can say that you had to change carpool because this man, by name, was texting and driving repeatedly.

What an ass. She did the right thing. I'd tell them nom why your daughter can't carpool anymore. Hopefully she's mortified.