Jasmine Yarbrough has shown her Queensland colours after offering to hop into the driver’s seat of a taxi to help it reverse down a narrow suburban street. The Brisbane-born shoe designer, 42, was filmed taking control of a Silver Service cab while her husband, Today host Karl Stefanovic, 51, recorded the moment from the footpath.
In the social media clip, Yarbrough appears unfazed as she guides the sedan through a tight reverse manoeuvre on a car-lined residential road. Stefanovic sounded impressed as he captioned the video: “When the cabbie can’t reverse but ya Mrs is a Queenslander”.
It’s not clear whether the couple were passengers or simply happened to see the driver struggling and stepped in. Either way, the footage quickly took off online, prompting etiquette expert Kate Heussler to point out that reverse parallel parking is a skill many people no longer feel confident doing.
“I know reverse parallel parking is one of those underrated skills that not everyone has, though the people who do have it can make it look very easy,” Heussler said. She added that she can “absolutely appreciate that some people are simply more confident manoeuvring a vehicle in a tight spot”.
Still, Heussler cautioned that offering to drive in place of a professional isn’t something people should assume is normal. “People shouldn’t be treating a professional driver’s seat like a casual swap-and-see-how-you-go situation,” she said. “Though in the right circumstance, where everyone is comfortable and clearly on the same page, I don’t believe it needs to be viewed as some terrible social crime.”
Yarbrough’s mother, Cheryl, weighed in too, revealing she was there for the moment. “We were in stitches,” she wrote, admitting she felt a little “embarrassed” when the help was first offered, but said the “lovely cabbie” was more than happy to accept it. Jasmine’s sister, Jade, also joined the fun, saying she was “dead” over the footage.
The comments section filled with praise, with people calling Yarbrough a “legend” and a “boss”, and one person describing it as a “great example to all men to never underestimate their wives’ capabilities”.
Heussler said the key considerations are how the offer is made and whether everyone is genuinely comfortable with it. “For me, the key is consent, tone and circumstance. If it’s invited, well-intentioned and done to genuinely help, that lands very differently from taking over or making someone feel incompetent,” she said. “This looked more like a lighthearted moment of assistance than a hostile takeover.”
She also flagged the real-world risks if anything goes wrong. “The moment someone else gets behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle, you open the door to questions around risk, damage and liability,” she said. “Legally, that can become messy. Morally, the driver is often the one left wearing the stress of it. So while I can understand why this happened, I’d still say it falls into the category of ‘acceptable in context’ rather than ‘a new etiquette trend we should all start embracing’.”
Even with those caveats, Heussler’s overall take was that the gesture felt “neighbourly” and “iconically Australian”.
