Are you sorry? or sorry you got caught?

The father that let his 7-year-old drive the family SUV at 40 klicks with seatbelt-less mom and toddler sibling in the back seat came forward. After letting his kid drive down a remote logging road and fliming the spectacle, he put the video on youtube to brag about his son's driving skills. When questioned, he said:

"I regret having done it. It was a bad decision on my part," the father, identified only as Sylvain, said. But he added that media coverage of the incident has been exaggerated. "They make it sound like I killed someone. It makes no sense."

Another stumble in the art of apologizing. If you've got to apologize for something, apologize. Don't follow up the apology with but...but...but. It negates what you had to say in the first place. But this often happens with the forced apology. You don't really think what you did warrants an apology, but you apologize because you're sorry you got caught.

The hole gets deeper as the father continues:

"I was proud of my boy because he was able to drive a car," he said, adding that it is not unusual for parents to let underage children drive. "How many parent let their kids drive in the middle of a city?" he said. "Here, there was no traffic."

So basically he spends more time giving excuses than for an actual 'apology'. Not exactly the best course of action if you're potentially facing criminal charges after endangering the lives of your family and potentially other people.

And I've got news for him. I may be driving in the wrong part of town, but I'm not seeing a lot of parents letting their kids drive cars in the city.

There's a lesson in there for people and companies that have done something wrong and find themselves under media scrutiny. If you're going to apologize for something, make it a good one. You've only got one shot at it.