Please can you help me with finding a way to tell my daughter that her driving is dangerous? She drives incredibly close to the back of the vehicle in front. It is difficult to judge, but it sometimes feels like we are no more than a couple of metres away, while we are driving very fast.
We live near lots of major roads and motorways, so trips will usually involve this type of road. I am not a nervous driver/passenger and if it wasn’t so dangerously close, I’d possibly be able to live with it. She has two young children and a husband whose driving she thinks is bad, as he is so fast.
I do occasionally say I think she is a bit close and she tuts and pulls back, but within five minutes she is right up behind them. No one likes having their driving criticised and I don’t want to fall out over it.
Eleanor says: The fact that you haven’t already done what many parents would do in your situation – clung white-knuckled to the coat hook above the door bellowing “too close!” – says a lot about you and your relationship with your daughter. It’s thoughtful to want to broach this carefully and to be alive to the fact that nobody likes to be told what to do.
That said, this might be one of those situations where there’s no way out except to say “I think X” while someone else says “X is false!”
Often when we have something difficult to say we look for ways to get the message across that won’t require disagreement. Having to say “I think X” is so squirm-inducing and so difficult, that we kind of hope we might stumble across a way of implanting “X” directly in their head without having to announce that it’s our view.
Unfortunately, when a habit like this is ingrained, you do actually have to draw someone’s attention to it for it to change. There are more and less critical ways to do that, but there’s no way out of the essential “conflict”: you’re trying to get her to think something that she currently doesn’t think.
I think there are two options: she doesn’t know that she drives unusually close to other cars, or she doesn’t mind. It might help to get precise on which it is – you can start by just asking questions. (Did they teach the rule that you should be able to fix a point that the car in front drove past, like a tree or a particular dashed line on the road, and count to three seconds before you pass it yourself?)
Once you have clarity about which one it is, you might just have to say some of the things you’ve said to me – and not while anyone’s driving. “I know you’re a competent driver and I know it’s not my place to baby you, but I worry that if someone stops suddenly you won’t have time to react.” You could point out that if she ever does rear-end someone, she’s more likely to be the one found at fault, and that most people overestimate their own reaction times and also underestimate the impairments of rain, fog or distraction in the car.
The key would be to keep stressing that you only want her to be safe, and that it’s not about knowing best or getting to boss her around. To offset that implication, you could even put the conversation on the back end of an interaction that makes clear that you don’t take yourself to know everything – is there something you could ask her to teach you, or some problem you could admit you’re embarrassed to need help with? I’m thinking that if she has an opportunity to help you and be the expert on something, it might feel more like information – and less like a power struggle – to hear the correction on the driving.
You’re exactly right that nobody likes to be told what to do. But if you want people to know things they currently don’t, sometimes there’s no option but kind candour.
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