Teaching your kid to drive can be a scary prospect. Few things are as frightening as sitting helplessly in the passenger seat while your anxious teen swerves perilously close to oncoming traffic, bumps over curbs and slams on the brakes at random intervals. I've done it and have the gray hairs to prove it.

But sometimes being in the car with an inexperienced teen driver is safer than being outside of the car. As in the case of a 17-year-old girl in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The teen was practicing her driving skills in a movie theater parking lot while her mom watched from the safety of a nearby fence. Or so she thought. When the girl attempted to park the car, she got confused about which pedal was the brake and which was the gas. She had a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but unfortunately she got it wrong and stomped on the gas and headed straight for mom.

Clearly mom had no time to react and ended up with two broken legs. Two broken legs is a pretty big deal but it could have been worse. But wait! It did get worse. The police decided to add some insult to the injuries and gave dad a ticket for allowing an unlicensed driver to operate his vehicle.

Isn't it pretty standard for parents to let their unlicensed teens practice driving in their cars? Okay, maybe it's not exactly legal, but don't you think two broken legs is punishment enough for this family?