Another Tragedy Involving an Under Age Driver
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting Suncoast Scribe!
I have written a lot about what can happen when an underage driver gets behind the wheel of a car. In this first paragraph alone you will find five links to some of the another articles I have written about this tragic topic in the past. I feel passionately about raising the minimum driving age in Florida and in the rest of the United States.
This next story does not take place on our highways or even on the streets of a neighborhood. In fact, the car did not travel very far at all. And still, it still involves unspeakable tragedy.
Last night in St. Petersburg, Florida a 13-year-old girl told her mother she was going out to the family’s Volkswagen Cabrio to retriever her schoolbooks. She took the keys and headed out to the parking lot. Instead of just getting in the car, getting her books, and getting back out – she and a friend took a joyride around the parking lot that ended with the death of a five-year-old boy.
First, the girl lurched the car forward, where it struck a wall and knocked out some concrete blocks. The, she put the car in reverse and the struck the five-year-old, who had been sitting on a planter.
He was hit in the torso and pinned against a wall with his feet dangling off the ground. Instead of pushing the break, the eighth-grader put her foot on the gas and rendered the boy unable to breath. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Witnesses say the girl and her friend were playing loud music and dancing as they drove around the parking lot. After she struck the boy, the driver ran from the car and was not found by police until an hour later.
A lot of the comments made by readers of this story on a local news website blasted the girl’s parents as being irresponsible in letting her have the car keys. Tell me, though, how many parents of a young teen have handed their child car keys so they can go retrieve something from the car? I do not find anything at all negligent about that action. This is clearly a case of a teen’s bad judgment and I think the teen alone should be prosecuted.
I do, however, still think it is a good illustration of our current problems with underage drivers in general.
No comments yet.