Teenage driving and cell phone tragedy

Stuff like this breaks my heart, and also feeds my anxiety.  I truly hate these tales.

But I’m posting it as a service to the 5 readers of my moron blog – some of whom have kids driving now.

Five recent high school graduates perish in a head on collision, authorities suspect cell phone text messaging may have contributed to the crash.

17 year old Bailey Goodman had just passed another vehicle on a two lane road when her SUV swerved into an oncoming tractor-trailer.  Her vehicle crossed left into the oncoming lane.  Authorities were able to determine that her cell phone had been in use receiving a text message less than one minute before the crash. 

They don’t know, and can’t know, if Bailey was the one using the phone.  They will never know.  And we don’t know and will never know if it contributed to the accident or not.

Drugs and alcohol were not involved.

 

The year my oldest kid started driving, a sixteen year old boy perished in a fiery crash on a two lane road, out in the country.  I was nearby, at a friend’s house.  We heard the speed, and the loss of control, and the crash.  By the time we got there, maybe 3 minutes, the car was 10 feet off the ground, in trees by the roadside, and engulfed in flames.  We couldn’t help him.  He probably died in the collision, the highway cop estimated his speed at around 85 based on how high up the car landed when he lost control.

He was driving home from work, and had just that week gotten his drivers license.

Later came the shrine.  The little cross, the pictures, some of his toys from when he was a little guy.  Broken-hearted memories from broken-hearted people.

So I took my kid there, and I told her the story, and I made her look at this stuff.  She was speechless, and began to cry.  I felt awful about it, but I needed her to “get it”.  To pay attention to something besides her old man blathering about “be careful”.

I looked into her eyes, and wiped some tears away, and I told her “He died because he was careless.  He thought he was bullet-proof and invisible, and he ran this thing up to 80, and he died”.

“Don’t do this.  Don’t talk on the phone, don’t jack with the radio, don’t drive like a lunatic”.

You can’t drive for them.  One day you have to let them go.  Use whatever lesson you have to, to teach them that they are one second away from unbearable grief if they do something dumb behind the wheel.  Make them face it.  You have to.

It’s pretty much all we can do.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Bailey’s family and her friends, and the loved ones of those who perished with her.  Unbearable heartache.

via Drudge