Husband insists on driving dangerously

Dear Amy: My husband insists on being the driver on both long and short car trips.

He has a bad habit of texting or otherwise playing on his phone while driving. I’ve told him to stop because I feel it is dangerous, but he feels he is in control and can “do both things at once.”

As the passenger, I’ve offered to search on his phone or reply to an email or text on his behalf, but he doesn’t accept these offers. Before trips even begin, I’ve offered to drive. He refuses.

Most recently, we were on a family vacation drive. My spouse spent the three-hour drive either taking conference calls, checking and responding to email, texting, and on Slack (instant messenger).

Your insight? — Co-Pilot Dear Co-Pilot:

If this driving dynamic continues — with your husband “not letting” you drive while he drives dangerously — then eventually Jesus is going to take the wheel, eliminating this problem altogether. According to statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (nhtsa.gov), distracted driving accounted for 3,450 deaths in 2016, and 391,000 people were injured in distracted driving accidents that year. If a car is driving 55 mph, and you check a text for a second, your car is driving the length of a football field without you watching the road.

Your husband may not value your life, his life, or others’ lives enough to make a different choice. But you value all of these things, and so you should force the issue by “not letting” him drive you under these dangerous conditions.

The next time you two are about to take a longer trip, you should urge him — using all of the logical arguments — to either turn over the driving to you, or to basically let you copilot his phone. If he refuses, you should rent (or borrow) a car, and tell him you’ll meet him at your destination.