Au Pair can't drive well - rematch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here - I went driving with her today again and we nearly got into an accident.

We called the LCC and are officially requesting a rematch. Thank you everyone who responded.

We couldn't live with ourselves if something happened.

Good for you. You will be in chaos for a bit, but will be relieved in the long run. She can find a non-driving position--perhaps a family that lives in city limits and thus doesn't require driving.

Protip: DO NOT let your agency 1) pressure you into matching with an AP who is not compatible with your family, 2) convince you that you are required to house the AP longer than 2 weeks. If you would like to, that is fine. Just watch out for side conversations between the agency and your AP about staying in your house for a week longer without telling you, 3) be prepared that your agency might put that it was "a mismatch in expectations" in the transition document.

Sorry it didn't work out, but you are doing the right thing.

[Anonymous]

You will never trust her and it will make your year more stressful than needed. When we had an AP who we didn’t trust driving, it really played a large part in ruining the year (for both AP and us!). We installed a tracker in our car so that we knew she was only driving kids to and from school. We worked from home to drive the kids whenever there was any whiff of bad weather. But she could never understand why she couldn’t just drive around with the kids to the zoo, etc. we rematched, but after far too long

[Anonymous]

I've been driving for over 20 years, but don't ask me to drive on the opposite drive, specially with kids in the car.

[Anonymous]

You're making the right decision, OP. It's not only your kids she could maim or kill -- it's someone else's as well. And in that case your family finances are on the hook, because she's your employee, she was driving in the course of her official duties, and you had actual knowledge that she wasn't a safe driver. You could face financial ruin even with good auto insurance and a general liability add-on.

You should be extremely clear with the agency (not just your LCC) that she is not a safe driver and should not be matched with someone who needs a driver. If you can write up one of those forms that says why you're rematching, make that crystal clear, and make it crystal clear to any host parents who contact you in the rematch process. It can be difficult because some agencies want to keep the former host family out of the process, but please try to warn other host families so they're not buying a pig in a poke.