My 19 year old son, Ben, was using a visit up North of our city, to practice his driving for his G2 driving test.  This was Friday last which was the 9th of January and his test was scheduled for Monday January 12.

Road conditions do tend to be worse north of the city, however, there had been no snow and the road conditions seem favourable as we drove to Durham College main campus in Oshawa.  After a short visit there we were headed to the Uxbridge campus a little more north and west of the main campus.

Needless to say we his a concession road that lacked, plowing,sanding, salting and was therefore more of a winter road hazard than the roads that  Ben was used to.

Now I can say this a number of way like, Ben was too inexperienced to handle the car on this type of conditions, or that I should have recognized that Ben should not have been driving on this road in it's winter conditions and taken the driving position.

As niether of these things are relevent now, let us just say that once the car was out of control, there was nothing that could be done except hope to not hit anything.

Unfortunately for Ben, and my car, there was a hydro pole in the area of the ditch that we landed in.

They say the best accident is the one you can walk out of without injury so we had the best accident that you can have.  The car, however, would disagree.  Fortunately we were in a well maintained 1994 Chrysler New Yorker where when these were made they still had a large front and rear end which almost matched the interior seating area of the car.  The car was made of steel and so were the bumpers at that time and with (not relevent but needs to be said) only 123K on the original engine, was a great car.

It is now a shorter car as the front end no longer exists so the fact that the KM were very low for that particular year and model, the engine is no longer part of the car either.

I must say that although I was very "hurt" about the fact that my beautiful car was now scrap metall, I did not let my son know this even after all the insurance reporting necessary for this type of accident.

The local police faulted the road conditions without question and my son now appreciates why his mother does not wish to drive him when certain road conditions may or do exist.

Ben passed his G2 driving test and can now drive on his own.

A car of course is now required before that can happen.

Here is where parenting is very  costly both financially and emotionally even when your son helps with the financial costs.

On a positive note, We were not hurt and Ben is a better, and wiser driver than he was on January 8!