Came home ON Friday after another hellish day at work to find my better half had destroyed the the big family car.

I’m the last 3 years she has destroyed my Honda CRV and our Mazda 5, not to mention some poor old bloke’s brand new Civic (bought with his dead wife’s life insurance), and an A&E nurse’s C-Max (just escaped a violent relationship). About 50k total claims once whiplash included.

Clearly we are cursed, the insurance will go up to £200 a month again.

Essentially this means we’re going to have to buy an old Vauxhall Zafira. Need the space and extra seats for when grandparents come to stay.

Will I regret this? Not getting her a new car again after this…

Perhaps its a hint she sholdn’t be driving?

She drove to work this afternoon in my car. I was terrified to be honest.

In any case. Old Zafiras decent?

with that run of form a bus pass is what id be looking at and if she isnt troubled herself I would having a word.

I figure the 3 strikes and you’re out rule applies here, or perhaps a resit of the driving test at the very least

Dosnt matter of its decent or crap by the sounds of it, it’ll be scrap before long.

Bloody hell, I’ll hate to be a cyclist on the same road as your wife drives.

I wouldn’t want my kids in a car with a driver that crashes so much.

Sounds like in the long run it’d be cheaper for her to get a taxi for every journey she does. Or….

😂

What’s the cause? Is she unlucky, careless, reckless, have an undiagnosed medical issue or what? Have any prosecutions resulted? I’d serious want to find out the root cause before she injures herself (or others) or worse.

Yeah, me too. The cost of replacement cars shouldn’t be the big worry imo

(it’s kind of crazy though… When i wrote off my mondeo- first actual crash of my whole driving life- fundamentally I drove straight into a stationary car. There were some reasons, which made it a bit less terrible than that, but still… I felt like, someone should be asking some more questions about this. But nah, we just cleaned up the glass, I got a bag of money for the car, and drove on. All anyone cared about was settling insurance not asking why 2 cars got turned into 1)

Horrifying isn’t it?

Basically because she is tired, a bit cavalier and it’s Surrey so the driving is quite intense.

But back on point Zafiras, any good?

I’m not saying this to be a dick but genuinely, assuming it’s not just spectacularly bad luck* is further driver training something she might countenance?

(* – And ‘bad luck’ is plausible. A few years back I’d had five collisions in as many years. In three of them I was stationary and the other two I wasn’t even in the car. Taking the car into the garage for repairs I wanted to ask whether they could demagnetise it.)

Basically because she is tired

Is that something you want to be admitting on a public forum?

If she’s tired enough to be causing a crash she shouldn’t be getting behind the wheel in the first place.

Sounds like she shouldn’t be driving.
https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/safety/tired-drivers

Basically because she is tired, a bit cavalier 

These things should be addressed. I’m not sure I’d be supportive of my wife driving if she had these issues and wasn’t trying to get them sorted. I know that’s easier to say than to do, but you could end up seeing her dead or some other innocent party.

Horrifying isn’t it?

Basically because she is tired, a bit cavalier and it’s Surrey so the driving is quite intense.

Sorry but don’t drive tired. As you have seen it’s really dangerous, what happens when she kills somebody?

You need to stop her driving. Major fines and or jail time await for driving while unfit to say nothing of the potential for killing someone

My dad’s got a 2litre diesel opel zafira, think it’s around a 2002.

He can’t justify replacing it as it just won’t die. Maybe lucky but it’s not cost anything other than general wear items and yearly servicing. It’s been a really good motor to be fair.

Good ad placement

Sounds like you’re at least getting a decent return on £200/month insurance!

Get a Volvo XC90, pretty much as safe as cars get and can be had fairly cheaply for an older one.

You need to stop her driving before she kills someone.

it’s Surrey so the driving is quite intense.

Really? What part of Surrey is that, Laguna Seca?

OP; no one is going to tell you which car is the correct choice because we all believe no car is the correct choice for your wife.

You keep telling us what she’s done and what she’s like but with a sort of nonchalant attitude that is frankly bewildering.
If my wife kept putting herself in that sort of danger I couldn’t live with myself standing by.

Stop her!

What part of Surrey is that,

Hell for Leatherhead?

A prison officer at the jail I was at was driving home one Monday morning after 7 nightshifts on the trot, she was knackered, fell asleep & hit another car killing the driver & had life threatening injuries herself.
Just saying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2777697.stm
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/are-tired-drivers-criminals-too-9195125.html

You are looking at this problem in the wrong way. Sounds to me like your treating the symptoms (keep replacing the cars) rather than finding a cure (changing jobs were she isn’t so tired or can commute by public transport.) Living in Surrey is no excuse either. Sooner or later someone is going to get hurt and you’ll be as much to blame. On a lighter note Zafira’s are cheap as chips and reasonably reliable. Unfortunately they don’t bounce very well.

Yeah she needs to sort her driving issues out.

To answer the Zafira question – how often do the Grandparents visit? Do you really need to move that many people in one car? Would it be cheaper to hire when you do (get the collision damage waiver!)? A zafira is probably an ok car for the purpose but it will have no modern safety features which it sounds like might be useful. At the end of the day they are older and so buying carries an element of risk, any really bad ones will have been scrapped a while ago.

On the wider issue, can you do anything to make her less tired? Or otherwise help to make her less exposed to risk (eg. doing more of the driving yourself)?

Get her an Uber account.

Let’s give your wife the benefit of the doubt, and assume she’s really unlucky. So how about an advanced driving course, so she can learn about “defensive driving”? That should make her a bit luckier . . .

What Esme said. And then take a view on whether she should be on the road or not.

Driving in Surrey intense…? Christ

£200 a month saving on the insurance could pay for a lot of taxis!

Absolutely intense, it’s bumper to bumper Audi racers and Chelsea tractors.

It’s basically a stockbroker Death race 2000.

£200 a month saving on the insurance could pay for a lot of taxis!

A very good point!

If she is repeatedly driving when tired then she’s a criminal in the eyes of the law, and many other road users, myself included.

It’s unlikely, but certainly very possible that putting her convenience before lawfulness will result in serious injuries or even deaths.

If the collisions are her fault, I’m surprised the insurers will cover her at all – £50k of costs is an awful lot of money. Do you really want to spend so much of your family’s money on treating the symptoms rather than the problem?

£200 a month saving on the insurance could pay for a lot of taxis!

Yes, but OP will need a 200 quid a month personal injury insurance policy for when he broaches the subject with his wife.

Is this a Brexit version of the allotment Israel/ Palestine thread?
Are you referring to TM trying to crash her deal through?