It wasn’t a gas well explosion, just another senseless tragedy:
A 16-year-old girl was killed late Tuesday night after the vehicle she was driving slammed into a tree, then flipped over on Brush Run Road a few miles east of the West Virginia state line. Four other people were seriously hurt in the crash. All five were from Washington, Pa., and range from 15 – 21-years-old. Two people were taken by medical helicopter to UPMC Presbyterian, a third was taken to Washington Hospital.
My parents refused to let me get my driver’s license when I was 16 because I was too immature. They let the other kids get them at 16.
Their judgement probably saved my life I was so out of control as a teen. Thanks, mom and dad. I wish more parents realized their kids are just too immature, reckless, and irresponsible to be behind the wheel of a couple ton guided missile. We’d read far fewer of these stories.
When I was a volunteer fireman, the worst part of these accidents was going from the chaos of the trapped accident victims screaming to the total silence (comparatively) when you stand there hosing the blood and glass and car shrapnel off the road into a ditch. I still have nightmares about the night the guys in a camaro hit a tree head on and the two back passengers had their legs broken in multiple places as they slid up underneath the front seat on impact, and we had to sit there and listen to them scream as we cut them out.
Don’t drink and drive people. Ever.
Baud
You’re so old, Cole. Kids nowadays text and drive.
Just Some Fuckhead
Kids around here don’t drive anymore. My daughter is 18 and still doesn’t drive and none of her friends do. I was driving at 15 years of age.
low-tech cyclist
My son just turned 6. I’m rooting for self-driving cars to be legal and widely available in 10 years.
Randy P
Teens don’t need to drink or text in order to be dangerous. Back when I lived down that way, there was an accident I remember in Bethesda, MD, a well-to-do DC suburb, where a kid was driving a bunch of his friends on a winding 30 mph road (East-West Highway as I recall, for those in the area). He decided it would be cute to do a “hey watch this” and started swerving all over the road at high speed.
Head on collision, several kids killed including his best friend. Who was screaming at him to stop before he died.
Immediately after that they put up a barrier between the lanes so idiot kids at least can’t go into oncoming traffic while doing the “hey watch this”.
ruemara
Horrible. I feel for the girl, her friends and their parents. And your parents are absolutely right.
SiubhanDuinne
I am something of an anomaly. I was almost 30 (maybe I was already 30) before I learned to drive.
When and where I grew up and lived subsequently has a lot to do with it. Oak Park, IL, was and is a walkable suburb, and has great public transportation to Chicago. After that, I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years, in areas where there was good bus service. Then NYC, with a great bus and subway system and LIRR. Wasn’t until I moved to Tampa that I felt the need to learn to drive (and then only because I no longer wanted to be dependent on my husband — getting my driver’s license was my ticket to marital and professional freedom, but that’s another whole story).
Anyhow, I was spared the entire driver’s-license-at-16 thing, and in retrospect, I’m glad of it.
Sad about that young woman. Devastating for her family and friends.
Zifnab25
All the money we piss away on Wars on Terror and Drugs… I wonder how many lives we could save through investing in mass transit. :-p
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead:
About the same thing is true where I am. Most kids don’t bother to get a license at least until they’re 18. California puts enough restrictions on 16 and 17 year olds that there just isn’t a lot of point in them getting a license, and the public transportation system is just functional enough that they can do without.
Nicole
So true. They just need to be in a group.
RSR
My wife was just telling me today about a radio report she heard about teen driving (most likely on PBS, but I’m not sure) and some statistical analysis applied to accident data. A big take away is that most teen accidents happen after 9PM. Limiting access to the car to daytime and evening hours is a simple way to reduce that exposure.
hildebrand
My son is 17 and has only the vaguest interest in getting around to maybe thinking about getting his learner’s permit. He is also thinking of going to college at Columbia, and therefore reasons that a driver’s license would be essentially superfluous, so we may dodge the whole teen driving thing altogether.
Scout211
Here in California, it is illegal for 16 year old drivers to drive with other teens as passengers for one year. Some teens still do and and (sadly) some parents don’t enforce it. But it has helped cut down on these kinds of tragedies.
We do like our regulations here in Blue State By The Sea.
Yatsuno
@SiubhanDuinne:
You should collect those stories. Just like with dance around, I have a feeling they could make a fascinating book.
PeakVT
Another report. The driver was killed, and nobody was wearing seatbelts.
Mr Stagger Lee
What gets me when parents give their kids high performance cars that are
beyond the skill of a 16 to18 year olds or an SUV that gives kids a false sense of security. Also don’t drive so fast especially, on rural roads with curves. I have a friend who works as an EMT with stories.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yatsuno:
Only if Sarah P&T agrees to serve as editor in chief.
JPL
@efgoldman: Where I live the regulations have to do with what time to put the trash out but fortunately, we can have our guns.
Yatsuno
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ll talk to the old bat. I bet she’d be thrilled to comb through the vignettes you two could collect. I should warn though, her editing is…creative.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman:
We have an ocean. You have a pond.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: When I turned 16 I lived in Villa Park. My old man let me have a motorcycle because I would “only kill myself and one other person”. When I turned 17 I left for Ft Campbell for Basis Combat Training. Which was more dangerous?
MikeJ
@Yatsuno: I’ve been in a small sailboat on the Atlantic in storms. You won’t think it’s a pond when it’s blowing 40kts and you’re in a 20 footer. (and yes, that’s a wimpy bad weather sailing story because I was lucky/cowardly enough to never have worse stuff come up.)
Nicole
I learned to drive at 16, as did most everyone I knew- if you didn’t learn as soon as you could you were one of the weird kids (ah, suburban/rural conservative areas. No tolerance for individuality). My grandfather got me a car for Christmas. A $500 rattle trap without power steering or power breaks and the button for the high beams on the floor. I had to get rid of it a year later because it would no longer pass inspection. My next car was an $800 POS that overheated if I tried to push it past 60 mph. On the bright side, when you’re a teenager driving a piece of crap you drive much more safely because you really, really don’t want to draw attention to yourself.
raven
@Scout211: Same in Georgia I think.
cathyx
Washington Pa, those are my old stomping grounds. I wonder if I know any of their parents.
Shakezula
Maybe she wasn’t irresponsible, out of control &c. She could have panicked when a deer ran in front of the car.
Scout211
@efgoldman:
The ocean is on the LEFT.
That can’t be wrong.
raven
@cathyx: Home of PONY Baseball, right?
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: Hope that’s a rhetorical question, but if it’s not I vote for the cycle being by far more dangerous. I’m thinkin you’ll agree.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: Pacific typhoons say o hai! Granted they hit almost always in Asia, but still, they can get pretty huge and strong. I think one hit Baja California a couple years ago IIRC.
@MikeJ: I’ll check with my dad (who was a submariner so may not have too much in the way of first-hand knowledge) but I believe he said the Pacific was much rougher than the Atlantic ever was.
JPL
@Shakezula: Did the deer tell them to unbuckle their seat belts?
cathyx
@raven: PONY baseball? Never heard of that. That town is otherwise know as Little Washington.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL: This. I actually won’t start the car — won’t put the key in the ignition — until every passenger in my car is belted and buckled.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Not sure, I survived both but damn. We’d ride to Lake Geneva with no helmets OR even glasses. Then again lead poisoning can be a bitch too!
raven
@cathyx:
Stands for Protect Our Nation’s Youth”. I actually liked their rules and organization way better than Little League when I was in that business.
MomSense
We have this smart graduated license system here in Maine. Teens can’t transport passengers (except immediate family) for 9 months after they get their license. If they get stopped for speeding or any kind of moving violation, drive after midnight, or with passengers-they lose their licenses for 60 days and the 9 month no passenger clock starts all over again.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Another sad story, one of too many in our country. Kids and cars don’t always mix well because they frequently don’t think of the consequences of their actions, nor do many have any sense of mortality and the finality of death. Mix this with parents who don’t pay attention to their kids habits and you have a recipe for disaster.
A really sad story to hear but unfortunately we are going to hear it again and again.
@Yatsuno:
Fix’t dat.
the Conster
Your story Cole reminds me of this awesome book I read a few years ago: Population: 485 written by a small town volunteer fire fighter/EMT who is also a great writer. One of the best reads you’ll ever read, because it’s informative while you laugh and cry. By the end of the book I was ready to leave my husband and stalk the guy.
MomSense
@efgoldman:
Because I live downeast the ocean is actually south so I would have to be facing west for it to be on the left.
raven
@Yatsuno: Way rougher. That doesn’t mean the Atlantic doesn’t get bad.
Graveyard of the Atlantic
mapaghimagsik
@efgoldman: HP Lovecraft could have never written what he wrote on the west coast. It would be more like “That which is dead cannot get a decent Latte”
Schlemizel
For me it was a warm summer Saturday. Mom & dad were out of town at the cabin or something. Their 17 year old son and his best friend had been drinking when they decided to take dads 280Z out for a spin. They caught air on a comer and clipped the guard rail on take off. The car ened up upside down wedged between two huge trees 6-8 feet off the ground and a good 2 feet narrower than it was built. There was no screaming, there was no crying whhich I had the ability to ignore. Instead we cut the roof off, working over our heads while what had been inside of them leaked down on us. A couple guys tried to catch them when I cut their seatbelts but really couldn’t. between the gore and the odor and the horror several guys threw up. Certain smells today, like offal or beer mixed with stomach smell can bring me right back there
CanadaGoose
Back in he really olden days I had a full driver’s license at 16 AND my own car. Of course, I was way too young and too immature to be turned loose on the freeways of Los Angeles that way.
I did survive and didn’t kill anyone else but it was a near thing once or twice.
Concerned Citizen
Just had to deal with an asshole in his 60’s texting in a Target parking lot. I trust Millennials and their younger counter parts much more that I trust the Boomers.
Hal
I was just reading a story in the paper yesterday about an 18 yo woman charged with vehicular manslaughter after hitting the car of another driver head on. Turns out she had double the legal limit. Hopefully she’s still young enough to put her life in order but that doesn’t mean much to the family and friends of her victim.
trollhattan
These stories make my heart ache. Rural living is generally more fatal than urban because of the higher accident rates and this is an unfortunate example.
Best friend’s younger son, who just graduated high school, was driving his new car with a buddy on board and early last Saturday hit another car. He and the buddy were banged up but otherwise okay, but the two in the other car had broken bones. It was the kid’s fault and worse, has harvested a DUI charge. This will haunt him the rest of his life and he’s just eighteen. Crap.
And oh yeah, they live in the sticks because mom’s convinced the city is SOOOOO DANGEROUS.
Right.
pseudonymous in nc
This happens often enough in ruralish America for there to be someone to write about it and get a Pulitzer. It happens a handful of times a year out in the sticks of NC, and invariably creates a gaping wound in a high school. (Especially, as often happens, if the driver is the only survivor.)
You have teenagers in Bumfuck who have nothing else to do but drive, who think they know the roads like the back of their hand, and drive them like they’re in a rally, except it’s five or six to a car. Plenty of them survive, but enough of them die in such similar circumstances to make it worth noting whenever it happens.
Jackie
My son finally took Driver’s Ed at 17 – I pushed him – he was terrified to drive because at 16, two of his friends were killed in separate driving accidents. One was driving in one accident, the other was a passenger in another accident. He is the most conscientious driver ever. He is now 32 and father of a newborn and an almost 2 yr old. He’s never been in an accident or had a speeding ticket. Or any ticket at all.
My daughter didn’t get to take Driver’s Ed until she was 18 – still in high school – but because I held her back a year due to ADHD issues, she was a Junior. And my rule was “you have to be a Junior before you take Driver’s Ed.” In spite of that, she managed to get into an accident 2 blocks away from home 3 weeks after gaining her license. I took her off my insurance and she couldn’t drive until she 1) had a job that could 2) pay her insurance. For 4 yrs she drove with the threat of “one more ticket and she’d lose her license” per WA State law. One would drop off and she’d get another. Now she’s a mommy of two and she hasn’t had a ticket for 2 yrs. LOL! She took awhile, but she finally understood that less tickets meant lower insurance rates. Her last ticket was in Johnson City, TN Feb 2011 – visiting her newborn who was sequestered in the NIC unit 45 minutes away. By helicopter radar.
Hillary Rettig
Here is a great blog about teen driving safety by a man who, sadly, lost his teenaged son in a single-car accident:
http://www.fromreidsdad.org/
Tripod
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml
mclaren
@Zifnab25:
“A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.” — Margaret Thatcher
That’s why.
Fuck Hitlerina and fuck the conservatives who worship her. I love buses and trains and light rail.
But America has been brainwashed with a supermacho Car Culture, so we’ll keep invading middle eastern countries for their oil and keep watching our kids die horribly in head-on collisions until the oil runs out…
Ruckus
@Yatsuno:
I’ve crossed that pond in a big boat several times. The english may think their home is a pond ornament but anyone who has crossed it wouldn’t think so.
I have stories that include broken bones and missing parts and pieces.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
I tried to edit that I have stories with broken bones and boat parts and pieces missing. Have seen waves over 50 ft high. And I have pictures.
Redshirt
I was the living embodiment of TEEN TERROR at age 16, on the roads. Thankfully, no one was hurt, injured, or died. But oh so close.
FlyingToaster
For all those calling the Atlantic a pond:
This
and
This
and
This
Yes, the Pacific has just as gawdawful storms, that fortunately for Californians go somewhere else. The Atlantic storms come right up our noses.
FlyingToaster
I learned to drive in drivers’ ed at 15; didn’t get my license until there was a car to drive at 16 and a half. My parents bought me a used semiautomatic VW Bug (from a violinist at the Philharmonic), in which I was allowed to transport myself, my middle sister, and a neighbor kid who was also in band.
No power anything, no speed, no acceleration, and a big fat bullseye for driving a red bug in Clay County, Missouri. Either the cops or the rednecks would be likely to get you. I stayed inside the city limits of KC or Gladstone after dark.
Never got a ticket, either.
KS in MA
@RSR: A friend of mine who is a trauma surgeon calls accidents “crashes” because she says accidents are caused. I gather “crashes” is common terminology among medical people. Not a pretty idea, but I can’t think of crashes as accidents anymore.
pseudonymous in nc
@mclaren:
Irrelevant here. Out in Bumfuck, which is where the bulk of these accidents happen, where are the buses going to go?
The US actually has a pretty solid mass transit infrastructure: it’s the school buses. If I were benevolent dictator, I’d combine the school bus and regular bus systems. Won’t happen of course, because Oh Noes Child Molestors, even if experience in other countries suggests that segregating adults and kids is stupid. But that doesn’t answer the question of what teenagers in the sticks are supposed to do in the evening if they want to have social lives and don’t want to rely on the parental taxi service.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Just Some Fuckhead: My older son got his license at 16. The younger one didn’t show a whole lot of interest and we’ve got his driver’s test scheduled. He’s 18. I don’t know why they’re not interested, except maybe they do all their socializing on the internet and xBox.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@SiubhanDuinne:
That would be awesome. Please FSM, make it happen.
Punchy
@efgoldman: I once experienced a coastal hurricane at a Pat O’Briens in West Palm. Got drunk as shit.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Nicole: Hell, I started in a Nash Metropolitan, 1500cc, 52hp, then upgraded to a Bugeye Sprite, 948 cc, 43hp. At least it would have been if more than 2 cylinders could fire reliably. My kids today have way more HP than they need.
With the improvements in the last 50 years, we could be getting 40 mpg at 70 HP. Honda did it in the mid-90s.
hamletta
@Randy P: I got stuck in the District during rush hour when I’d just gotten my license, and I was with three other girls.
We’d gone to a costume house that was closing down and selling off their inventory.
DC drivers are aggressive and take no prisoners. The girls got all squealy and shit, and I stopped the car and shouted, “You need to shut the fuck up. Right now!”
They murmured about how bitchy I was, but when we got back to the ‘burbs, they realized I was right.
When they changed the laws to disallow passengers, I was very grateful for my goddaughter.
Jager
When I retired from broadcasting (today’s radio disgusts this guy from the generation that put rock on FM) I sat on my ass for a year and then started a high end-high tech driving school. We literally train the hell out of our teens. 251 grads in two years and no accidents. The accident rate in California for teen drivers is just over 50% within 18 months of licensing. Driving is still the number one killer of teens,if 100 die-73 die in a car accident. Americans accept this because we believe driving is a “Right” not a privilege. California’s graduated licensing has done one thing, its pushed the accident rate down from 16-17 and raised it from 17-19.
The DMV has a kid study a book, take a multiple choice test, six hours of professional training and drive 50 hours with Mom and Dad and then take a test behind the wheel that may last as long as 8 minutes. No requirement to know how to park or drive on the freeway. Can you think of any other skill that requires so little training or practice?
I ask parents would they consider having their child audition for the LA Phil with that level of training on the piano or trumpet?
Parents here spend thousands on music, sports and other training and little or nothing on training that can save their kids life.
As far as not wanting to learn how to drive, kids that don’t, have a rude awakening when they are about to graduate from college and realize to get a job they need to have a license or when they do get a job, when their company sends them to fucking Kansas City on business they’ll need to rent a car. I’ve had parents drag fat, dumpy 20 year old “gamers” into my office and say “I’m tired of hauling this POS around, teach him how to drive!
Dave C
When I was 16-17, I had a friend who would drive me and a few others around, and he would periodically take his hands off the wheel and refuse to put them back on such that I would have to reach over from the passenger side and steer the car down the highway. I did not fucking appreciate that.
kelrian
I didn’t learn to drive until I was 21. Mostly because my high school Driver’s Ed teacher liked to regale us poor souls in 3rd period with horrible stories of dead student drivers and horrific “red asphalt” films. Kind of scarred me for a while there.
No texting while driving for me, thanks. It’s enough just worrying about the snowbirds and the idiot teenage boys in giant trucks.
tybee
@Scout211:
depends on which way you’re facing
debbie
I drove once when I was pretty impaired. I was 18 and was sure that if I was careful, I’d get home okay. It was 2:30am and there were no other drivers on the city streets and all of the streetlights were flashing yellow. I don’t think I got above 25 or 30mph, but I still managed to swerve up onto the curb on the other side of a four-lane street. Scared totally shitless, I swore I’d never do that again. I still won’t drive even having had only one beer.
Paul in KY
@Shakezula: Could be…Wonder if alcohol was involved?
Paul in KY
@Dave C: You should have punched him in the balls, hard. Told him “don’t fuck with my life”.
It appears, though, that you got out alive.
Dave C
@Paul in KY:
In hindsight, yes indeed I sure have done that.
Paul in KY
@Dave C: Hindsight is always 20/20! Next time you see him, you should tell him he was lucky to get away without talking soprano for that shit,
JadedOptimist
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Wait… Your first car was a Nash Metropolitan. My first car was a Nash Metropolitan. Your next car was a Sprite. My next car was a Sprite. That’s a pretty random succession of two rather rare cars, wouldn’t you say? Do we know each other? Are you me?
MAxxLange
Who said anything about drinking? It drives me nuts that people seemingly think that alcohol is the sole cause of car accidents. People with poor driving habits, who care nothing at all for their own or others’ safety, are a larger problem, I think.
Love the passive voice of that description, too. The car hit a tree – whoops!