Wednesday, November 4, 2009

COLORADO: A 42-year-old pedestrian died after he was struck by a car driven by a 17-year-old driver. Police are not releasing the name of the driver, but said Steven Green, 42, of Denver was walking on South Lansing Street in Aurora when he was struck.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

CONNECTICUT: Police say a 17-year-old driver ran a red light, spun out of control, and killed a 17-year-old pedestrian in Hartford. Anthony Morales died following the accident, and another pedestrian was hospitalized in stable condition, according to this story.

Old accident, new charges


ALABAMA: Police this week charged a 16-year-old boy with two counts of manslaughter after an Aug. 22 accident left a pregnant woman dead. David James Mears was charged by Madison police weeks after the accident. David was driving through an intersection when he t-boned the pregnant woman's car. Cynthia Sandefur, 19, and her unborn child died in the wreck. Police are using a law called the Brody Bill that allows for a second criminal charge when a pregnant woman is murdered or killed. More details can be found here.


Waiting for more details ...

MASSACHUSETTS: I have been waiting for more details on this case, but nothing clear has emerged yet. A 15-year-old girl died in Marblehead, Mass., this summer when she was crossing the street. I've been watching it to see how old the driver is, and he has yet to be charged. But this story from the Salem News says the boy had only been driving for a few months, and already had several speeding tickets and a three-month suspension.

The family of the girl, Allie Castner, is distraught, naturally. The accident happened Aug. 24.

UPDATE: The state has finally revoked the license of the 19-year-old driver, Thomas Larivee. Story is here Larivee's eventful driving record is here.

Allie has officially been added to our tally of deaths caused by teen drivers.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

MINNESOTA: A new mom was struck and killed by a teen driver as she walked with her baby along a road in Oakdale. Stacey Jane Morgan, 33, was out for some exercise with her three-month-old daughter, Zoe, when an unnamed driver struck her from behind. The baby was ejected from the strolled but remained in her carseat, and she was unharmed. Morgan suffered head injuries and died later at the hospital. Police are investigating the crash. There is a story here in the Star-Tribune. 

VERMONT: A 15-year-old boy died as a passenger in a car driven by a teenager who swerved across the road and ran down an embankment and into a tree. Joshua Fratus, 15, of Danby, died in the crash. Kristen Shortt, 17, was driving northbound on the road when she swerved across the southbound lanes and into the embankment. Joshua died at the scene, and Kristen was taken to the hospital.


IDAHO: A 16-year-old boy was charged with leaving the scene of a crash and misdemeanor manslaughter after a passenger in his car drowned when the car flipped into a canal. Alejandro Medina-Alvarez, 23, drowned in an irrigation canal after the car flipped and landed in the water, according to this story in the Idaho Statesman. Police have not identified the driver.

TEXAS: Moments after 19-year-old Rachel Ratcliff died in a collision with an 18-wheeler, her mother came upon the accident as she drove down the road. The story in the Beaumont Enterprise doesn't go into much detail about the cause of the accident, but has some lovely memorial information on Rachel.

Friday, September 4, 2009

TEXAS: A teen died after he opened the passenger door of the car he was in, fell out, and was run over by a school bus. Police say verbal disputes between groups of teens in two cars resulted in the incident. Police believe the teen was trying to get out of the vehicle to escalate the fight, when the driver turned and drove away. The driver and victim were not named. Here's one of many stories on this incident.

PENNSYLVANIA: An 18-year-old Fort LeBoeuf High School senior died late Friday night less than a half mile away from her Summit home, according to the Erie Times-News. Danielle Chizewick had been out at a football game Friday night, returned home for a bit and then headed back out. She said she'd be back soon.

Minutes later, her car slammed into a utility pole and a large tree, flipped, and then came to rest against another tree. It took rescue workers more than an hour to free her from the wreckage. She died at the scene, and the accident cut off power to the neighborhood, including her parents' home.

The three other teen males in the car were not identified. They were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

MAINE: A passenger was ejected from a car and died late Friday in a one-car accident near Kennebunk. State police said the car veered off the road, went into a ditch and struck a cement culvert. Anthony Blangiardi, 18, of Eliot, was ejected from the vehicle's passenger side and was later pronounced dead. The driver, 18-year-old Jonathan Veino was treated and released from the hospital. Veino was wearing a seatbelt,  and Blangiardi was not, but police noted that the passenger seat was also ejected from the car during the accident.

Updated story here. Police say alcohol was involved in the crash.

UPDATE: Police arrested Veino on Sept. 11, and charged him with manslaughter and aggravated operating under the influence. Story here.

DELAWARE: A 46-year-old man was struck and killed by an SUV driven by a 17-year-old in Smyrna, police said. Police believe the man was drunk as he was walking down the road. The teen driver slowed down and honked, but the man fell into the path of the SUV. The teen was unable to avoid hitting the man.

August 24, 2009

CALIFORNIA: A 60-year-old beach loving woman and her dog, Peanut, were struck and killed by a 16-year-old driver, as the woman headed out to the surf for her daily walk. The Ventura County Star says the driver has not been charged with anything, and told Ventura police he didn't see them in the road before the crash.

Family members told the newspaper that Susan Herman was "half flower child, half attorney and accountant." She had a daughter and one grandson, whom she doted on.

Herman, pictured above, was an animal lover who rescued tortoises, chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs, hamsters, birds, a cow and a horse, her daughter told the Ventura County Star. Peanut was also adopted.

OREGON: An 18-year-old woman was ejected from an SUV around 4:20 a.m. Monday after a simple driving error ended in a fatal rollover. According to a local TV station,  the 22-year-old driver drifted into the shoulder, and overcorrected, causing the vehicle to roll over. The accident happened on a rural road in Lakeview.

Over correcting is a common issue in novice drivers, and really anyone who may be nervous behind the wheel, or sleepy, or drunk. It's when you get startled by something and jerk the wheel in the other direction, causing the car to lose control and sometimes flip. Although by this photo, it looks like the road they were driving on was likely nerve-wracking enough, with the steep dropoff to their right.

Lauren Allison, 18, was not wearing her seatbelt, and was ejected from the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, Michael Bymoen, was wearing his seatbelt and was taken to the hospital, and was listed in serious condition.

August 23, 2009

FLORIDA: Not sure if this fits into the whole teen driving scenario, but it involves teens so it feels wrong to exclude it. An 18-year-old driving a dirt bike without its lights on struck a car, which was also driven by a teen. The accident happened west of DeLand, Fla., at around 11:15 p.m., according to the News-Journal. The dirt bike driver, who was not wearing a helmet, died. A passenger on the bike, also not wearing a helmet, was in critical condition Monday.

OHIO: 19-year-old Jacob Childers died in an early-morning accident after his car struck a tree in western Lucas County. Police say Childers was not wearing a seatbelt, and may have been speeding. There's a short story explaining some details here.

UPDATED: There's more info out now on Childers, known as Jake to his friends, at Legacy.com. Childers was an honors student who was planning to attend the University of Cincinnati in the fall. "He had  agreat sense of humor, a creative flair, passion for adventure, loved music, believed in God, loved the water, and had an appetite of no other." Plus, the picture with his obituary shows that there's a chance the girls were gaga for him.

NEW YORK: A New York City security guard returning home from work was killed by a teen driver early Sunday morning as he stepped out of his cab. The New York Daily News reports that 32-year-old Donald Bryan was struck as he headed back to his Queens home.

He stepped out of the taxi just as a Lexus driven by 18-year-old Alfred Barcenilla Jr. "roared around the corner," witnesses told the newspaper.

"I knew the guy was in bad shape," neighbor Christopher Gianni told the New York Daily News. "The last thing he said to me was that he felt really cold. That's when he started to slip out."

A report in Newsday says Bryan was dragged under the car for half a block until the car crashed into a fence. 

Barcenilla was not injured in the accident, passed a breathalyzer test and was not charged with DUI.

UPDATE: Barcenilla was later charged with underage drinking after the accident. Given the fact he passed the breathalyzer test, he probably was drinking but not technically drunk. What's that new drunk driving slogan? Buzzed driving is drunk driving? Seems to fit here.

OHIO: A 17-year-old boy from Holland, Ohio, was killed when he ran a stop sign and was hit by an oncoming car. Jacob Martin was driving a Dodge Neon when he ran the sign around 7 p.m. Sunday, and was struck by a car driven by a 28-year-old man from Toledo. Martin was declared dead at the scene.

UPDATED: Legacy.com has Jake's obituary and guest book up, although no picture. He was an avid BMX biker, snowboarder, and involved in his church's youth group. He also volunteered at charity events for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the comments on the guest book show he was a polite and sweet, bringing younger kids to roller skate and "had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I've known."

WISCONSIN: A 17-year-old boy from Campbellsport, Wisc., was killed around 2 a.m. Sunday in a one-car accident on a rural road. Tyler Batzler was partially ejected from his car when it went off the road and entered a ditch, rolling over. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

UPDATE: Friends have erected a memorial page to Tyler on Facebook, in addition to the memorials the family is working on. People keep repeating the same message: Tyler loved life, and was friends with everyone. He had wicked blue eyes, and shared my passion for Will Ferrel movies (at least, that's what his MySpace page says.)

He also appears to have been a pretty good snowboarder, as you can see in this video below. Tyler is the last snowboarder in the shot.

August 22, 2009


MICHIGAN: Police are investigating why 20-year-old Ryan Woodward was laying on a dark rural road, according to this story by the Lansing State Journal. He was struck by a car driven by a longtime friend, age 19. The driver is not expected to face charges, since he was the designated driver and DUI tests prove he wasn't drinking. But police don't know why Woodward was in the road -- could he have passed out there? More to come on this story.


NEBRASKA: The Journal Star posted a lovely memorial story for 16-year-old Emily Johnson, a junior at Southwest High who died Saturday heading for work at noon. The accident occurred close to her home, colliding with a car driven by 17-year-old Taylor Mortensen. His car struck Emily's car at the driver's door as she pulled away from a stop sign.

Mortensen is still in the hospital.

Emily, a twin, seemed like a blast to be around, and her friends still seem in shock by the news. They spent Sunday telling stories about how funny she could be, saying how she could make eating Chipotle burritos graphic and funny.

She had just started her junior year a week earlier.

KANSAS: Sixteen-year-old Dalton Westphal of Carbondale died in a one-car rollover accident Saturday evening. He was a junior at Shawnee Heights High School, and was the only person in the car. Police say the accident is under investigation.

UPDATE: Dalton's obituary is online through the funeral home.  Dalton was an honors student, played soccer, tennis and baseball, and was smart enough to figure out how to fix his new iPod when it stopped working. He liked to play pranks on his sister, and apparently spent a good amount of time laughing.

CALIFORNIA: An 18-year-old Bakersfield man was killed when he crashed into a brick wall on Snow Road. Police say  they're unsure of what caused John Jenkins to lose control of his SUV.

UPDATE: Jenkins' obituary is online, and shows him to be bit of a teddy bear. He loved video games and computers, and spent a lot of time offroading. Known as Jon-Jon to his family and "Tiny" to his friends, Jenkins was willing to help out anyone in need, the obituary says.

NORTH DAKOTA: A 15-year-old driver with his learner's permit lost control of the car he was driving on August 22, and struck and killed a woman who was on the sidewalk.

According to this story in the Jamestown Sun, 60-year-old Christie Morgan was sitting on a folding chair outside the Blockbuster Video in Jamestown. She was selling videos when she was struck.

The driver and a 19-year-old licensed passenger were not identified by police.