• The Publisher’s Notebook
•
Lethal Lessons from a Malibu Tragedy
Microscopic fragments of glass and plastic
are embedded in the asphalt on a stretch of Pacific Coast
Highway west of Trancas. They glisten in the sunlight in an
area defaced by gouges where last week’s crash involving
five 17-year-olds provided another grim reminder that
inexperienced drivers, alcohol/drugs, speed and
disregard of seat belt use are a formula for tragedy. The photo
of the crushed remains of a car that seconds earlier was likely
filled with the sounds of youthful exuberance powerfully
illustrates the fact that every 15 minutes, a teen loses his or
her life in a moving vehicle. No amount of careful parenting or
driver education seems able to staunch the river of tragedy
that flows from this lethal amalgam.
The five young people in the car that
fateful Tuesday evening were students at the same high
school—a school that ironically was slated to host a
driver safety program in the next few weeks. That the school
decided not to put on this program strikes me as the wrong
response to the situation. The otherwise easy-to-ignore message
of safe driving might have had a greater impact on the
students under the circumstances. At least the school is
considering putting the battered remains of the car on display
at the campus. We would make the case that a similarly crushed
vehicle should be placed on permanent exhibit in the student
parking lot of every high school campus in the state,
including Malibu’s. In time, the shock value of this
life-as-art sculpture would diminish, but if the wreckage was
cause for reflection by even a handful of students, it
could save lives.
Still unclear from the investigations of
the PCH accident, as well as last week’s freeway calamity
that claimed four lives on a church outing, is whether any of
the occupants were wearing seat belts. Despite the ridicule
that has been heaped upon seat belt enforcement laws, belt
use is a major factor in the reduction of fatalities,
whether or not the accidents are alcohol or speed related.
Teenagers cannot be reminded often enough that the odds
are not in their favor. If as much attention was paid to high
schoolers’ driving habits as to their sexual behavior,
more of them might survive to their twenties. The statistical
probability that we as parents, while our children are in their
teens, might face the same agony as the dead youth’s
parents when they arrived to claim their son’s body,
cannot be dismissed. As frightening as the special effects in
the film “Prom Night” may be, the worst teen horror
story often begins with a telephone call that starts out,
“We regret to inform you that your child has been in an
accident...”
