COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: Driving laws for teens not tough enough
Four dead teenagers on the road do not just make for a community tragedy. The carnage is a plea for tougher teen driving laws. I hope our friends in Albany remember that the next time they water down a law that could save lives.
The makeshift memorials already are up at Strickler and County roads. The sobs catch in the throats of the friends of the victims. The story is tragically familiar. Handing a teenager the keys to a 3,500-pound vehicle is, for a parent, an exercise in breath-holding and blind faith.
Study after study shows that the brains of teens are not fully mature. That is why some of them drink to oblivion, or drive as if there is no one else on the road. They are reckless by nature, convinced of their immortality and filled with an “It Can’t Happen to Me” certainty.
All of those traits were apparently abundant in Viktor Shapiro. Authorities say the 18-year-old, driving a 2002 Nissan Sentra containing three teenage friends, blew through a stop sign Sunday night and smashed into a minivan. The grim impact at the rural crossroads killed Shapiro and his three passengers and seriously injured a passenger in the minivan. It was a horrifically high price to pay for a joy ride.
Shapiro could be the face for tougher teen driving laws. His short, reckless life behind the wheel was marked with a speeding conviction, license suspensions and a slew of tickets. Victim Megan Schnorr’s twin sister, Jennifer, warned her not to get in the car with him.
There is a state law against teens with junior licenses driving with the distraction of more than two nonrelated teen passengers. As of February, that number drops to one. Shapiro—who had recently “graduated” to an adultlicense— had three others in the car.
It is nearly four years since Diane Magle lost her daughter, 17, in an Orchard Park accident. Four teens were in the car, including Magle’s other daughter. “Having all those kids in the car definitely played a part,” Magle said. “The [driver] swerved as a joke, and they all laughed. She did it again, and lost control of the car.”
The vehicle crossed a lawn and hit a tree.
“The distraction of multiple passengers is a huge issue with teen drivers,” said Jackie Gillan of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D. C., group. “The risk of accident increases dramatically.”
There should be a blinking red/yellow light at rural crossroads such as Strickler and County. This is not the first accident there. Given Shapiro’s history and mentality, there even could have been a crossing guard and a barricade, and it may not have made a difference.
I do not want to speak ill of the dead. The young man paid too high of a price for an awful mistake. His family and friends are devastated.
But it is one thing to be reckless with your own life. There is a ceiling on my sympathies when other people must pay for that mistake. Three other teens were in the death car. The woman in the minivan, Bonnie Grimmer, is badly injured. She and her husband, who was at the wheel, must endure emotional wounds.
New York finally—under the threat of losing federal dollars—this year toughened some teen driving laws. It soon will be illegal for new drivers to have more than one nonrelated teen passenger. Pre-road test training time will more than double.
But Albany only went halfway. Teens charged with speeding can still plead to a lower charge, and the new textingwhile-driving law is nearly toothless.
The carnage in Clarence is further proof:We need tougher laws to protect teens from themselves. We need tougher laws to protect us from them.
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