'AITA for not buying my stepdaughter a new car?' 'She is NOT a good driver.'

"AITA for not buying my stepdaughter a new car after she's repeatedly gotten into accidents?"

My step daughter is not a good driver. She was not a good driver when she was a teen and certainly not as an adult. When she was first learning to drive, she did very fast hard breaks, she repeatedly left her car's lights on or left her car unlocked.

When she first got her permit at 16, we gave her two rules. We would help buy her first car but she'd be on her own for car insurance, gas, and up keep. If she wanted a car, she needed to be the sole caretaker of it and it was on her to ensure she was taking good care of it. Her brothers had the same rules.

3 months into her being 17, she got in her first accident. It was her first time driving in the ice and she slid. Her car hit another car. It was not a serious accident, but it caused roughly 1k in damages. Her car drove for another 2 months, but the transmission went out eventually. She bought it at 160-ishk miles so none of us were surprised it didn't last very long.

When she was 19, she was in another car accident. While on the highway, a semi-truck tried to merge wile riding next to her, she sped up and during it, another car tried to merge right as she sped up.

The car was totaled. Outside of whiplash and minor wrist injuries, she was okay. Because of this accident, we made her get her own insurance because our payment went up.

Three weeks ago, she was involved in another accident. Again on the highway, she was passing an on-ramp and a car coming on hydroplaned and lost control of a ladder in the back of it's pick up truck. It again totaled her car: it could not leave the scene and we had to get her to bring her back to her college.

The other driver broke his collarbone and she has whiplash, a shoulder injury, and some facial damage that should heal in the next bit. The police officer told her that it was not her fault, but obviously we have to wait for the insurance to make that call.

Once she got home from the ER, she asked for us to help her purchase a new car. She said that it's not practical for her to constantly walk everywhere until she could afford a new car. She makes $21 an hour as a CMA at a nursing home so it won't take her long to buy a cheap car.

From her apartment, she is about 1.5 miles from college, .25 miles from a grocery store, and 4 miles from her job. I think for the time being, she can walk, ask for rides from friends, or use an app. We don't have public transportation, but lots of side walks. She can walk the entirety from her apartment to class, most to a store, and on and off from her job.

My husband wants us to purchase a new car and have her pay us back. I don't think this is the right move. To date, the only time we have ever helped buy a car is when they all started driving, and we only paid half.

She only saved 2k for her first car, so we only gave 4k for a new car. One of her brothers saved up 10k, so we gave 10k. If we start doing this now, we will walk down a very expensive walk. I have gotten mixed reactions from others. Thoughts? Am I the ahole?

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

SlappySlapsticker said:

I don't think it's an ahole move to lend her the money and she can pay y'all back, if you can afford it. This is where I think YTA - reading through her list of accidents they all seem like that, genuine accidents.

Completely unrelated to her being a bad driver or leaving the lights on in her car. Which I was surprised about because the start of your post makes her seem like a terrible driver who's at fault for her crashes...yet not even Lewis Hamilton could avoid someone aquaplaning into him out of nowhere.

nuukland saicd:

If her last accident was not her fault, then the other driver's insurance should cover the value of her car at the time of her accident. Let that be her down payment and she can make payments from her salary. Or you can loan her the money as long as you think she will pay you back.

RegretOk194 said:

YTA are you sure you even like her? I'm all for loaning her the money as a reasonable compromise. But you seem really determined to make her walk for something that wasn't her fault.

Zombie-MountedArcher said:

YTA. I was in a car accident with “minor” injuries; I still felt like hell & it was months before I felt up to serious physical activity. You expect her to be walking all over, carrying books & computer & whatever else while her body heals?

What’s the weather like where you are right now? If she’s working and going to school, will she be out before sunrise/after sunset? Does she have to walk through any unsafe areas? She seems like she’s trying really hard to get a good start in life & had some bad luck that wasn’t her fault; why not loan her extra for a down payment on a better car?

Airline_Pirate said:

NTA. If her car was insured, and written off... The insurers will give her the value of her car. She can use that money to buy another car. That's how insurance works.

issy_haatin said:

Wow, just shows how much you despise her. A learning driver did fast breaks, and that's the excuse you're using. All the other stuff is another drivers fault. Dad wants to help his daughter that apparently has gotten quite a few injuries, and all you're saying is: nuhuh. YTA.

Entorien_Scriber said:

YTA. The first thing you do is make sure we know she's a 'bad' driver, and your examples of her driving skills are that she braked too hard when she first started to drive, left her lights on and car unlocked, (Careless, but nothing to do with her driving), and has had three accidents which sound like they're not her fault.

It sounds like she's a far better driver than one of her older brothers, who has clocked up four accidents! She has offered to pay the money back, that's not buying her a car, that is a loan. You are refusing her a loan to get back on her feet after what must have been a frightening accident!

You're rewarding your kids disproportionately. You should be looking for equity, not equality. A kid that works the moment they can get a job will earn more than one who goes to college, depending on the career they're aiming for the one in college could spend years earning far less than the one who got a minimum wage job.

Neither of those choices are invalid, but you're showing that it's far more important to you for a kid to earn as quickly as possible, than for them to continue their education. Finally, what "choices" would you like her to think about? What has she chosen to do that seems to have disappointed you so much? What are you hoping to get out of this?