It seems as though there is an epidemic of teens losing their lives needlessly recently in motor vehicle accidents. The last one this past weekend in Shelton, in which my husbands fire department responded to. Such a sad loss of life that could have easily been prevented by safe driving, not speeding and following the rules of the road, and we are seeing this more and more.
Several times over the summer we learned about speeding teens in accidents, some fatal, some not, but the common factor in most of these accidents was speed. During a News Channel 8 interview with a friend of one of the victims of the Shelton crash this weekend, she discussed how the 19 year old driver of the car, Larry Morra, had discussed totaling 4 or 5 cars, and how she was lucky to be alive after a accident where she recently totaled her car. Unfortunately this accident not only took his life but the life of his 18 year old girlfriend, and almost took the life of another 18 year old friend.
We see shows like “My Super Sweet 16″ on MTV which is directly geared towards this age group, so why not promote, record and air a show on safe driving and feature all these horrible accidents that kill young people long before it is their time to leave this Earth. Maybe it will help these teens to learn that they are not invincible like some seem to think they are.
As parents we need to monitor their driving more, be more involved in their teen years, it is not a time to become less hands on, but more hands on as there is more trouble, and danger that these children can still put themselves into. Especially while operating a motor vehicle. I fully believe the changes that have been put onto drivers licenses in the state over the past couple years have been positive, but if we keep seeing accidents like this, we need more done.
