Teen Death Toll in Crashes Spirals Up [View All]

[mahatmakanejeeves]

A principal, on TV last night, lamented that the school system had dropped driver's ed.

"No Child Left Behind"

Teen Death Toll in Crashes Spirals Up

Teen Death Toll in Crashes Spirals Up
17-Year-Old Dies in Montgomery, the Seventh Victim in Md. in Recent Days

By Daniel de Vise and Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page A01

The silver Toyota Corolla carrying 17-year-old Christian Cruz and three friends on a midnight food run swerved off a slick Montgomery County road and hit an elm tree early yesterday, making him the seventh suburban Maryland teenager to die in a traffic accident in little more than a week. Neither Cruz nor any of his 15-year-old friends in the Corolla was licensed to drive.

Hours after Cruz's death, mourners gathered in La Plata and Fort Washington to eulogize two victims of an earlier wreck. Four students from La Plata High School were killed Nov. 6 when the teenage driver of the car they were in, speeding, overcorrected and spun into the path of a sport-utility vehicle.

The cycle of grief recalls fall 2004, when 15 young people died in the span of a month in Washington area crashes involving teenage drivers. A Maryland law enacted in response to those deaths could have prevented two of the most recent wrecks -- including the one that killed Cruz -- if the teens had obeyed it.