Despite his record of dangerous driving, teen was unfettered en route to 4 deaths
Viktor Shapiro had a speeding conviction, two license suspensions and a slew of pending tickets, but his license to drive was in good standing when he raced past a stop sign Sunday night in Clarence, killing himself and three other teenagers.
Advocates seeking to promote safe driving among teens say the 18-year-old Shapiro’s reckless actions make a strong case for tougher laws, though they wonder if even the strictest of laws would have changed the way he drove.
In fact, a new state law aimed at strengthening teenage driver safety beginning in February would not have applied to Shapiro. It reduces the number of nonfamily passengers younger than 21 allowed in a car driven by a teenager from the current two to only one.
Once Shapiro turned 18 on Aug. 30, he automatically graduated from a junior license to an adult license, which has no limitations on the age of passengers.
“Even at his young age, he didn’t seem to be affected by the normal sanctions that work for other people,” said Anne McCartt, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va. “Studies show getting a ticket does affect most of us, but it didn’t work for this young man.”
Describing Shapiro as a serial violator, Jacqueline Gillan of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, D. C., said his driving record demonstrates that he was a danger to others on the road.
“You combine that with putting three other teens in the car, and it is a recipe for tragedy,” Gillan said Tuesday. “Every day on our highways, 10 teens are killed in crashes. You’re talking about 70 teens dying every week. Can you imagine the outcry and efforts if this was happening with airplanes?”
Shortly before 8:30 p. m. Sunday, Shapiro drove at a high rate of speed past a stop sign on Strickler Road and collided with a minivan traveling on County Road, according to accident investigators from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office.
Killed were Shapiro and his passengers, Megan Schnorr, 16; Amanda Slisz, 16; and Mark Brown, 19; all of Amherst. The minivan’s driver, Mark Grimmer, was treated in Erie County Medical Center and released. Bonnie Grimmer, his wife, remains there in fair condition.
After Shapiro was ticketed for speeding 73 mph in a 55- mph zone in Erie County on Feb. 10, he failed to show up in court, and his junior license was suspended.
In May, he paid a fine, and the state Department of Motor Vehicles slapped him with an additional 60-day suspension for the speeding conviction. The suspension took effect June 18.
Three days later in Silver Creek, state police stopped him and charged him with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, along with several lesser violations.
Because only convictions are forwarded to the DMV, the state had no idea he was once again in trouble, and his junior license was reinstated Aug. 18, followed by his adult license at the end of the month.
The only penalty was 4 points that carried over from his junior license to his adult license for the speeding conviction. And that apparently had little impact on him.
Driving home from a Lil Wayne hip-hop concert at Darien Lake in late August proved to be a hair-raising experience for his passenger and friend, Vlad Rushanov.
“He was really going fast, weaving in and out of traffic, and I just wanted us to stop before anything happened,” Rushanov said. “In the back of my head, I was saying I’d rather have a cop pull us over than crash.”
A young driver such as Shapiro, McCartt said, calls into question the whole notion of graduated driver’s licenses.
“Part of the concept of graduated licensing is that you move through the stages of a license after you’ve completed each stage successfully,” she said. “The idea is that if you pile up citations, you would be held back. It looks like this young man was certainly sending signals that he wasn’t ready to be a responsible driver.”
McCartt added that just because young people turn 18 does not necessarily make them more mature drivers.
When asked how someone such as Shapiro could have gained a greater respect for the rules of the road, McCartt said, “I don’t think I have an answer. This case shows the difficulty in preventing people from driving that shouldn’t be driving.”
Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said proposed federal legislation would require states to adopt minimum standards before teens are granted full-fledged driver licenses.
The legislation would require that individuals with provisional licenses, such as a junior license, would need a clean driving record before getting the upgraded license. Among the offenses that would block licensing progress are drunken driving, misrepresentation of true age, reckless driving, failure to wear a seat belt and speeding.
“There also is a movement in some states to withhold giving a full license when teens do have these moving violation,” Gillan said.
Under New York’s newest law that deals with teenage drivers, starting Feb. 22, other provisions increase driving instruction from 20 to 50 hours, with 15 of them taking place after sunset; a six-month waiting period between getting a permit and a license; and a ban on teen drivers using any portable electronic devices.
The safety of young drivers, DMV spokesman Ken Brown said, is a priority for the department. He said that when it received notification of Shapiro’s speeding conviction, it took steps to penalize him.
“Because he was convicted of a serious traffic violation, generally an offense that carries 3 points or more, his license was suspended for 60 days on June 18,” Brown said.
Of the subsequent pending violations from Silver Creek, including driving with a suspended license, Brown said, “The Department of Motor Vehicles was not made aware of those alleged violations because they had not been adjudicated.”
Shapiro had been scheduled to appear today in Silver Creek Village Court.
“It’s a shame that this young man ended up the way he did,” Village Justice Thomas F. Buczkowski said. “People who have a tendency to think they need to drive will drive no matter what.”
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