Just to let you know I read this. So glad it ended oke!

And thank God that both of them had a parent so close at hand when it happened.

When I was 23, a guy in a 4X4 did a U turn across my path on a national road and I ploughed into his side at about 110km/h (a little under your 70mph). I was out in the middle of the rural Transkei on a Sunday afternoon and had to rely upon the kindness of strangers to take me to a little rural hospital where the doctor had to be fetched by a man on a bicycle because there were no phones.

I was very seriously injured, the car was written off... and I was all on my own.

You are so right - if it has to happen at all (and it does to most of us at some point or other along the way) the way it happened to your daughter is inifinitely preferable!

Glad she is OK Dave. I had my one and only car crash when I was 18 at 60 mph and walked away much to my parent's relief

Every parent's nightmare Dave - glad she is ok
Rob

I had a similar thing happen with my kids about 6mths ago. Two teen sons and a 20yo daughter in a car with a friend (driver). The boy lost control of the car in the wet in a 50kph zone and ran through a roundabout. Car written off but all of the kids walked away without a scratch (very shaken). The driver's father enrolled his son in a defensive driving course the next day.

The accident happened two streets away from our home. One of the kids ran home to tell me. I'm reminded of it everyday when I drive past the damaged roundabout.

Thank goodness the lesson happened at low speed.

Dave

So glad she is OK - as a mother of a daughter who has had her license for only 2 months I can empathise. Tabitha recently hit a kangaroo and had the sense to tell me all she could think of were my instructions not to swerve to miss the kangaroo - better a dead roo than a daughter wrapped around a tree. She told me she closed her eyes and just kept going - luckily she only nicked it rather than smashing the front of her new car. My biggest panic is she will hit one on the steep winding road down into our valley.
I am sue you must be very relieved - see you next week.
Nerida

It's funny how when the big bad things happen, like an accident, we could care less about the things and and what the kids might have done wrong (if anything), we are just glad they are OK and our role as parents is to comfort them and have them feel safe. Yet for the small things (dirty room, leaving the front door unlocked, etc) I find myself getting angry at hem and raising my voice. I find it somewhat funny that I react that way.

... I had always wondered why my mum didn't go absolutely bonkers after I wrecked her car three days after my driving test...