What is the single most vulnerable spot on any car when driven by a new driver? I can say with absolute confidence that the one point on any automobile that is most likely to suffer from a new driver's over confidence is... the right front corner of the car. Even though it is within the line of sight of the driver, because it is slightly off center from where the driver is looking, it might as well be invisible to the new driver.
How do I know that this is the point of impact most commonly struck by the new driver? In my first week of driving my Mom's then-new 1971 Ford Pinto, I found a way to burry the right front corner of the Pinto into the fender of a parked truck while making a U-turn. I was concentrating so hard on the inside diameter of the turn I was making, I did not consider the consequence of my wide turn. The result was a crumpled right front fender, a sympathetic truck driver who never mentioned it to his boss (his damage was barely noticeable, but the Pinto took it hard) and my Dad made sure that I learned my first lesson in hands-on body and fender repair.
Thirty-three years later, my nearly 16-year-old son Andrew is learning to drive and he has found a way to smack the same point of our family sedan, a 2003 Honda Accord, into perfectly innocent cement wall while pulling into a parking spot at the local mall.
Andrew is driving as much as possible under the supervision of a licensed driver under California's Learner's Permit program. As I have written earlier, he is doing a good job operating the automatic transmission-equipped Accord and we have purchased a 1990 Honda Prelude with a 5-speed transmission, which will become his daily driver when he gets his Driver's License. Now that he has had some time behind the wheel of the manual transmission Prelude, he assures me that driving the auto-tranny Accord "is easy." Maybe too easy. While he must give his fullest concentration to driving the stick shift car, the automatic-equipped car allows a young mind to wander.
And wander it did, because he was watching the left front corner of the Accord as he pulled into the angled parking spot. The poor, defenseless right front corner got short shrift and a crunch into the wall.
Maybe I am at fault for Andrew's first contact with a solid object while driving. I was the licensed driver riding with him at the time, and legally I bear the burden of responsibility of his actions behind the wheel. As such my job is to instruct and critique as he navigated the local roads.
Under the very best of circumstances I am a very poor passenger, I prefer to be the master of my destiny and generally do not trust the driving skills of others. As a nervous parent with responsibility for my son's misadventures while motoring, I tend to keep a steady stream of instruction flowing while Andrew drives. "Not too close to that parked car. Traffic is slowing, use your brakes. That was not a complete stop." And so on.
I constantly have to withstand the withering sarcasm and exasperating eye rolling of the Modern American Teen when I am giving this lifesaving help. Nothing will deafen a teenager faster than the sound of his parent giving advice. As we approached the wall that was about to be struck, I went into protective-mode. Issuing warnings about the impending impact with the wall in rapid-fire succession only worked against the wall, the Accord's front bumper and me. The more I warned, the more he ignored. Andrew's full concentration was on the front left corner of the car in his direct line of sight and the right front corner's distance to danger was ignored.
The impact was at crawling speed, the wall will live to see another day. The impact resistant front bumper of the Accord resisted the impact with no structural damage although the paint was gouged from the plastic bumper cover. From a distance it is barely noticeable, but the anal retentive such as myself it is a mar that will live with the car infinitely. And Andrew's confidence got shaken just a bit from the impact and the righteous tongue-lashing I unleashed on the poor guy, "I told you to not hit the wall! But nooooo, you would not listen."
And thankfully the lesson learned from the first "crash" came at a pretty small price for Andrew. After I crumpled my Mom's Pinto I have never had another appreciable automobile accident. Hopefully Andrew's minor brush with the wall will be all the experience he needs to avoid any other incidents.