To young drivers: We're riding with you

A strategy to avoid summer driving tragedies

It’s a teenage memory that has haunted me for 50 years.

Fatal wrecks often occurred on the rural Northern New Jersey highway that fronted my parents’ business. Back then, the drinking age in New Jersey was 21, but just across the border in New York State it was 18.  Young people would drive up to Greenwood Lake, N.Y.,  get hammered, and sometimes wipe out on high-speed journeys  home.

One night a muscle car loaded with four intoxicated young boys hit a concrete bridge railing at more than 100 mph. The force of the collision drove the engine into the trunk. Three of the boys died on impact, while the fourth, who had lost most of his limbs, mercifully died a day or two later. 

A one-car accident. Four lives lost. Four families shattered.

I’m recounting this story for three reasons:

First, I just watched a video demonstration of what happens to passenger car when it hits a solid, unmovable object at high speed.  It’s a gruesome sight, and there are many such hazards along all roadways. 

Second, summer will soon be here — that time of year with the highest number of fatal accidents. And rural highways — which we have aplenty in the Lower Columbia Region — are especially notable for fatal high-speed crashes, according to the National Transportation Safety Commission. No one — not even an Indy car professional — is a safe driver at excessive speed on rural highways or county roads.

Finally, during this season of proms, graduation parties and other youthful revelry, I want to give parents and grandparents a different kind of strategy for warning young members of their families about the hazards of reckless driving.

Youth, of course,  believes it is immortal and invincible. So teens blow off warnings that they can be killed or maimed. “Yeah, but it won’t happen to me,”  they think. Or, the other retort: “Don’t worry. I’m a good driver.”

So how to break through his perception of invulnerability?  Young people need to be reminded that their lives are not totally their own.  They have family responsibilities, financial obligations and a duty, as human beings, to do what they can to better the human condition and not squander this precious thing we call life.

I have told my daughter Anastasia, now 30, from a young age:  ’Please, Anastasia, don’t put yourself or your friends at risk. I couldn’t bear losing you. I would die, too.”

I remind her that she will have obligations to care for her disabled younger brother. That she is a chemist and cancer researcher, and that I hope that she has a long career and contributes more to eradicating this disease. She has a long-time boyfriend. Her needless death it would be a loss beyond endurance.

All drivers need to remember that it is not just they who get into a car. Your parents, your friends and  your community are riding with you in absentia. They all have a stake in your life. And the same goes for people in any other car you encounter.

Don’t risk your life to save five or ten minutes. No time savings can justify a premature trip into eternity — and the loss of you to the people you love. 

So please, remember that when you get into a car, we’re all riding with you.

This column originally appeared in The Columbia River Reader, a Longview-based monthly I also write for. Occasionally I will republish them in Lower Columbia Currents for those who miss them in print.