A favorite former student of mine was killed Wed. night in a car wreck.

[callous taoboy]

She was a sophomore at the H.S. and was one great girl. She and 4 friends had just left a meeting and were driving a country road when the driver decided to play a game called "drifting" (intentionally causing the rear of the car to go the opposite direction of the front wheels at high rate of speed). There were no intoxicants involved. He hit a dip in the road and the rear of the car wrapped around a tree killing Katie instantly. Another girl was life-flighted with a crushed pelvis. Two boys broke both legs. The driver walked away. What a senseless loss.

Parents, please make sure you know the driver when your kids go on outings, and make sure the driver knows that you expect him / her to exercise safe driving. Teach your child to never get in a vehicle with a driver that cannot be trusted to use good judgment. I know this is often easier said than done, and perhaps Katie's parents had done all of this. I just look back on my own experiences as a young driver and wonder how I made it out alive.

[seabeyond]

1. must be an "in" thing. i hadn't heard of it until recently. my nephew

did this a couple months ago and went into the yard of someone taking down the fence. i dont really get it, but gonna let son (who will get license in a year) read this.

[callous taoboy]

4. This was the first I'd heard of "drifting" as well,

but I wikied it before I posted and it is a skill that race car drivers use and there are professional "drifting" competitions.

[T Wolf]

13. The 2006 version of the movie "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" highlighted this

"technique" - I'm sure that flick motivated a lot of hot-rodders (showing my age) to attempt it.

[callous taoboy]

18. Maybe there is no getting through to most teens? Our H.S. went through

a period about a dozen years ago where each year they were losing at least one teen due to DUI. One year 5 kids died because the driver was drunk. So they now do an annual program about safe driving which includes keeping a car that had been mangled in a DUI accident parked on the H.S. lot for a week. They even stage an accident scene for the other students to see, and I've heard that it is a well done staging, but I wonder how effective this really is.

[T Wolf]

34. I wonder if today's teens take it any more seriously than we took the ridiculous movies

they showed us to scare us into (or out of) certain behaviors.

I do like the new series of PSAs that have teens exert peer pressure to get drivers to drive slower/safer/etc. Whether it is effective is another question.

[callous taoboy]

35. Maybe teens are more desensitized these days, especially with

likely influences such as video games. My brothers used to tell me that those films grossed them out.

[dionysus]

31. it's a method of car racing that's supposed to be done on a track, not on the street....

[seabeyond]

33. and by professionals? lol. i am getting that. thanks. nt

[dionysus]

37. i never heard of it until recently... a lot of people get killed in the saudi arabia doing these

races. people literally crowd at the side of the track, and often get wiped out by out of control vehicles!!

[seabeyond]

39. geez. the stupid people do. nt

[TwilightGardener]

2. My son turns sixteen soon, many of his friends are driving--

it's a huge fear of mine, these kids being on the road--they still seem like children to me. Poor girl, may she RIP.

[shadowknows69]

3. So sad, So sorry for this tremendous loss.

My friends and me did similar stupid "We're invincible" things when we were young and thankfully no tragedies ensued, but they sure could have. I do in a way blame movies/video games. There is a desensitization to danger that goes on.

[KittyWampus]

7. there's also an element of guys doing the "machismo" thing. A friend of mine who took law

said that when the class discussed the evolution of 'common nuisance' case law, almost every case involved teen age boys.

Not that teen girls (including me) are immune from dangerous and stupid things.

[TwilightGardener]

11. Yes--there is really nothing scarier than a car-load of teenage boys.

Each boy, individually, may be smart and responsible, but get them all together in one vehicle, and the collective IQ goes way down. That's why I've refused to let my son ride with his buddies, until they're all a little older.

[sendero]

55. I agree...

.... when I was young I rode motorcycles. I was a careful and cautious rider, but whenever me and a couple friends rode together it was all about the testosterone. A series of one-upmanship events ensued. I generally didn't start them, but I wasn't about to let them go.

After one particular incident where I could have easily bought the farm, I didn't ride with them any more. Just not worth it.

[shadowknows69]

12. Well a girl I used to live with in college also disputed that theory

She'd wake up to drinking Jack Daniels. Consequently she died of liver failure at 26. No, testosterone isn't the only cause.

[whathehell]

15. An exception that proves the rule, I'd say...Check out the Darwin Awards...

and see how many are female.:eyes:

[shadowknows69]

17. Maybe men just happen to die more often due to their stupidity.

Women are general more common sensical creatures in my experience. Usually they know when to pull back from the edge. Thelma and Louise being obvious exceptions.

[callous taoboy]

21. As a man, I agree. I was stooopid a LOT behind the wheel. n/t

[seabeyond]

23. i was too. and.... female. i like to go fast. always have, always will

my rhythm. i walk, talk, drive fast.

but i tell boys, was damn lucky too. for the grace of god, there go i.

[Berry Cool]

25. I admit, I had a female friend who did stupid stuff sometimes

and once she was actually in this teeny little truck she used to drive with me AND my mom and she deliberately did "donuts" in an icy parking lot to freak my mother out. Looking back, she's really lucky she didn't roll the truck and kill either of us.

[seabeyond]

28. ya. lol lol. boogey bouncy. i loved going boogey bouncing. i am afraid

of so many things, but not driving and speed.

my oldest thank god is totally like his father. ultra responsible and sensible and a rule follower. unfortunately, my youngest is more like me. lol

[whathehell]

27. Stupidity, Testosterone, Risk addiction...Whatever...Theres a reason

Males under tweny five traditionally paid highter auto insurance premiums.

Thelma and Louise were fictional characters...The unfortunates in the Darwin Awards are/were not.

[BlueIris]

5. Rec-ing to balance out the sickness of the person who un-rec'd it. nt

[mnhtnbb]

6. So sad. My oldest son and friends were supposed to be at the friends'

house on a Friday night about 6 years ago playing video games (overnight) At 2 a.m. the phone rang and when I picked it up I heard "This is Officer xxx. Your son has been in an accident but he's ok."

Turns out the boys decided to go do some real driving and had been on a winding road
30 miles from here. My son went into a spin and ended up hitting a road sign. The other boys
in the car ahead saw him spin out (didn't flip)in their rear view mirror and made an immediate
u-turn to go back to help. The officer had been sitting in a parking lot and saw the u-turn
and immediately went to investigate.

Hubby had to go pick up my son and the friend riding in his car and bring the other boy riding
in the other car home (so that the other driver was alone).

I have always known that had my son hit a tree or a telephone poll instead of a road sign, he would
have been killed instantly because he wrapped the car around the sign on the driver's side.

No one was injured.

We had talked endlessly to our son-- 17 at the time--about driving safely. Just dumb luck he wasn't killed
that night.

[callous taoboy]

9. I'm glad he made it out of that one. Given that you had talked

about driving safely with your son I now wonder just what it takes to get through to young drivers. When my older brothers went through driver ed. they were shown gory car crash films. By the time I went through driver ed. they no longer showed the films.

My parents did not make an effort to make sure I knew that they expected me to exercise good judgment involving driving, hence my early years of often using poor judgment as well as DUI. Like I said, I am really lucky to have not killed myself or others as a teen driver.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. They do hill jumping here

And yes, they die.

[LibDemAlways]

10. My 16-year-old thinks I'm mean for putting stringent restrictions on

whose car she can be in. I won't even let her drive with a friend's parent unless I've met them. At this point she isn't getting into the car with any teenagers. Period. None of her friends are experienced drivers. I feel terrible for Katie's family - every parent's worst nightmare.

[callous taoboy]

14. Her poor family had already been through a lot recently. Now this. I don't know

how a parent survives after losing a child. I really loved Katie, and though I had not seen her for a few years her death hit me extremely hard. I don't have kids of my own, and I can't begin to imagine what her parents must be going through.

[Berry Cool]

24. Your 16-year-old is a very lucky girl

and someday, when she is an adult as she likely will become someday thanks to you, she will thank you for being such a PITA. You can be assured of that. Perhaps one day she will give you grandchildren and she'll be as "mean" a mom to them as you were to her.

[Vickers]

16. What was the seatbelt situation? n/t

[callous taoboy]

19. They were all buckled in, apparently. n/t

[seabeyond]

22. people die in seatbelts too. another one of those illusions that

safety belts are the be all, end all of protection. not true.

though i am a proponent of and stress with sons, get in a car, buckle up, no if and or buts

it does bother me to hear on news with crashes, "they werent wearing seatbelts" as if that then takes away any sympathy/empathy for death. when someone dies and they are wearing seatbelts they just dont say anything.

[Berry Cool]

26. Well, it shouldn't. People should just realize that there are situtations in which seatbelt non-use

makes things worse than they otherwise would have been. Then again, I can think of at least one situation in which a life was probably saved BECAUSE a seatbelt was not used. It's just that those situations are by far the minority, and people should know that.

But the fact that people weren't wearing seatbelts doesn't reduce my sympathy or empathy. It just makes me all the sadder.

[seabeyond]

29. i feel the same as you

uncle was thrown from car and he says what saved his life. ya know.... really, as i look at life, shit happens. sometimes that is all it is. we do the best we can, making odds the best to our favor. that is about all we can do

[callous taoboy]

32. In this situation, the seatbelts may have saved at least one other

life. A lot of folks die after being ejected from the vehicle.

[Shell Beau]

36. Absolutely. I have known too many people who died that way.

My very own brother being one of them. Buckle up.

[callous taoboy]

54. I'm sorry about your brother, Shell.

Lately I've noticed my own driving habits getting a bit sloppy: No turn signal, rolling through a stop sign occasionally, putting my seat belt on after I've been driving for a few minutes, taking some risks with speed. Not anymore.

[Berry Cool]

20. I am so sorry for the loss of that girl, and the pain of the others in the car.

Now that driver has to live for the rest of his life, as a very young person, knowing that a simple act of stupidity cost a life and much misery.

Thanks for the reminder. I will tell my sister to make sure she knows who my nieces are with.

[callous taoboy]

30. I witnessed a teen car fatality while home from college in 1987:

My parents lived on a very sharp curve which had been the scene of numerous accidents. I was sitting in our living room with a friend when we heard a screech of tires and a loud bang. I knew immediately that someone had wiped out at the curve. We ran out to find a jeep on its passenger side with the roof wrapped around the huge oak that was probably 15 feet from the curve. Driver was already crawling out and we smelled alcohol on his breath. The passenger's forehead was crushed in, and I ran and called 911 while my friend stayed. When I returned the driver was pleading to his buddy, "Please don't die, man, please don't die." He had died on impact we found out later. Both were teens.

My friend kept in touch with the driver for a while afterward. He told me about 3 years after this wreck that the same driver had killed another woman after he, again drunk, had run a red light.

[Maru Kitteh]

45. And that is why I always favor extensive sentencing and probation when serious injury or death occur

So many times you see the drunk driver get off easy because "the poor guy" lost his best friend, his wife, his kid, whatever - and by goodness isn't that punishment enough?

NO. It is not. Because next time it's someone else's best friend, wife, etc.

I'm fully in favor of ANY intoxicated driver at fault in a deadly accident losing their privilege to drive for the rest of their lives. I don't care how young the offender is or how much they loved the person they killed. If they insist on driving anyway, keep throwing them back in jail for as long as it takes, or permanently if need be. Innocent families shouldn't suffer because they are morally defective, selfish assholes. Alcoholism is a destructive disease but it doesn't give you an excuse to kill selfishly.

I had a very good friend who was the loveliest man but unfortunately never won his battle with alcoholism. He died frozen in a ditch about 20 years ago. Nobody knows if he just passed out, or slipped or what, but we all knew why he was walking. He got pulled over for DUI just once. Nobody was hurt, but it scared the hell out of him. He never ever drove after so much as a beer after that. He couldn't bear the thought of hurting anyone else. I'll always love him for that. I just wish he could have figured out how to beat the bottle. I miss him still.

[callous taoboy]

50. I'm sorry for your loss.

[Vidar]

38. K&R.

[callous taoboy]

40. Self-kick for afternoon.

[pipi_k]

41. This is my main reason for wishing the age would be raised

While it's true that not ALL 16/17 year old kids are mental midgets behind the wheel, it's better, IMO, to keep them all off the roads until the age of 18, at the very least, or even 19 or 20.

And yeah, there are going to be the usual "reasons" why kids should have their license at the age of 16, but there are always other options.

Take a bus, ride a bike, walk, carpool, pay a friend or relative...whatever.

Sad that every kid would have to be penalized because some are stupid, but I'd bet the parents of those kids would probably prefer that to death and life-changing injuries.

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. I am so sorry to hear that. It's always awful to hear about the senseless tragedies. :^(

[Cherchez la Femme]

43. Elegy for Jane

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

--Theodore Roethke


I'm so sorry for your, and the family's, loss.


(Please note, I'm just posting this poem for the emotion and the surface similarities. In no way am I comparing a riding accident with criminally stupid driving decisions. Gah, you have to spell everything out on this forum.)

[callous taoboy]

51. Beautiful poem, and thanks for the condolences.

I went through my box of photos last night and found the class pic with Katie in it. Such a bright, beautiful girl with never an unkind word.

[CoffeeCat]

44. When I was in high school...

...five girls skipped class and decided to play musical chairs in the car. One girl was killed. One
suffered significant brain damage and was incapable of taking care of herself. Another girl was disfigured
and suffered internal injuries. Another girl had minor injuries.

I have never forgot this, and I drove differently since that day. Your life can change in the blink of an eye.

[Electric Monk]

46. Learning that we're only immortal for a limited time

R.I.P.

[SoCalDem]

47. that's too bad.. How awful for her Mom & Dad..

We used to do "doughnuts" in the snow... but it was at the high school parking lot (when there were no cars there).....and not at a high rate of speed.. we would never do stuff like that on an actual road..

[niceypoo]

48. Seems every generation has their high school car crash

The one when I was in school killed two of my friends and left one looking like frankenstein. Such a foolish waste.

[callous taoboy]

52. My brother lost a good friend in 1972 when they were seniors, again drunk

driving was the culprit. My brother's friend was heading to LaGrange, Tx. to have a good time with 4 buddies. Two boys killed and one with serious brain damage.

[Mopar151]

49. Drifters? "Fast and Furious"?

Them guys all hate me. Well, not really - there are maybe 5 - 10 legitimate professional drifters, but they are just racers working a novelty for money and cred toward their real sport. Rhys Millen is phenominal - he did the car stunts for the "dukes of hazzard" movie, and they had to slow most of the footage down in post-production to make it belivable for moviegoers.

But the "world of drifting" is ALL about posers and fake memes. We had a drift club beg to participate in our hillclimbs. Dog slow, crashed, couldn't drift for s%$^. The one guy that came back after the first experience turned out to be such a loose nut/assclown we hadda 86 him from the series - first time in 30 years that's happened! The fake meme is that drifting was invented by Japanese rally drivers - hokum. You want to see guys who can really drift - fast, in precise control - watch some good ol' American dirt racin'! (Yes, performance rally counts too.) Wanna see? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfy6Ign3cUE NASCAR star Tony Stewart "hot laps" a "dirt late model". I had an squirrely intern workin' with me who had swallowed the myth whole - I showed him some dirt racin' action, he would'nt talk to me for days - guess I popped his bubble bad.

And "Fast and Furious" What a pantload!Heck, the first FNF movie was about the star driver's fear of an American musclecar - and Nitrous Oxide Systems paid about a Million bucks, I hear, for "product placement" in the movie. Yes, there are fast Hondas and VW's - I've seen lots of them - my Dad had a supercharged VW Bug in the 50's! But the movie moguls that made FNF never showed the downside, or how those of us with the "need for speed" stay alive, and don't put "civilians" in danger. As I've posted here in threads about exotic cars, rollcages, REAL seatbelts/harness, helmets, Nomex suits and more are anathema to the morons who get all jacked up on these movies - never mind doing this stuff under anything like controlled circumstances. When I roll out to play, there has to be an ambulance on hand by State law, and there is a communication and flagging network devoted to keeping the road clear.
Kids are gonna take risks - it's in their nature. And locking them up will only make them take the same, or bigger risks, out of sight, and without precautions. There are plenty of kids around our hillclimb club - but they get schooled early, and they've seen plenty of wrecks. Go-karts are great fun, and a super learning tool. Autocross, rallycross, and driving school fall right into place - I know of a couple kids who got a driving school for their 16th or 18th birthday, instead of a car. A little informal "skid school" in a big, snowy, UNOBSTRUCTED parking lot is good, too - it can be quite illuminating to find out that you can be completely out of control at 20 mph, or to learn how to recover from a skid - even to drift well (it's not easy). And if you can teach a kid to THINK, and not act (especially brake!) out of panic or fear, it's a big win. I have literally seen people apply the brakes while approaching a "Bridges Freeze First" sign, in freezing rain. And I know of a tragedy much like the OP - a girl got a car (full of friends) airborne on a jump (it's not a jump at the 30 MPH speed limit, but go 70....) and locked the wheels up before touchdown. Over a stone wall, into the woods - did'nt end well.
The driver in the OP likely yanked the handbrake, while going far too fast to handle the resulting slide. And now he has to live with it for the rest of his life - a tragedy all around.

[callous taoboy]

53. The driver did yank the hand break in this crash. n/t