Maryland Attorney and Lawyers

A little after 5:30 Thursday on a clear last June, a car with two young 16-year-old jumped into an illegal parking tractor-trailer on the shoulder Route 50, on land of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

There was no Bremsspur marks.

A few hours later, there was a chain reaction in Nancy’s Pawn door to Waldorf, a time of the incident, as she sat on a breakfast of frozen waffles and “The View”.

A priest and a policeman standing in front of him with their hats in their hands.

“Ms. Pion,” she said, “We are sorry …”

“It is not acceptable, Dustin,” said Nancy Pion firmly to their youngest son. “It is a ring of combat tournament, Ocean City.”

But the men of his son product portfolio. Nancy Pion called her husband, Larry, and told him to come home to Labour, just now.

For 11 months, a period in the summer of 2001 until summer 2002, that the scene was all too familiar in southern Maryland four separate car accidents claimed the lives of six High School - athletes, a graduate of a recently, and three other youths. In a quiet suburb of the town, where families come for their children, these families instead bury:

• On 26 July 2001, Scott Hoppe, 16, an age and an increase in footballing Chopticon High School in Morganza, and Joseph Marcheggiani, 18, former football standout and Lacrosse, studies at Chopticon months, were killed , As Hoppe has lost control of his 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier in a sudden downpour.

A third passenger, aged 17, Steve Terrell, survived.

• On January 27, 2002, Erin and sisters Joshua Davis, a cheerleader for 16 years and 15 years, Junior Varsity football players Lackey High in Indian Head, died in an accident on Highway 1 in Fort Belvoir, where his family had friends go and watch a play-NFL game.

A third teenager, 15, died of an accident, and 17 years, had survived the driving. The names of two brothers and sisters too, have been by the police because of the indictment against the second alternative, a juvenile crime.

• On 11 March 2002, Joseph Wade, 16, a football player Lackey, and Eric Graham, 18, former student Lackey, died, as Graham has lost control of his Cavalier in 1997 and met a tree on Highway 227 in the vicinity of Pomfret. Marques Fincher, 18, a track athlete, Lackey is a graduate of the previous year, after surviving ejected and thrown about 50 metres from the car.

• On 13 June 2002, Dustin Pion, 16, a star of West Lake Ringer High in Waldorf, and Tiffany Wells, 16, Thomas Stone High in Waldorf, died as Wells, behind the wheel of Pion — 1984 Datsun 300ZX because it led to the house of Ocean City, click on the illegal parking of tractor-trailer at full speed shortly after crossing the Bay Bridge. First police speculation that Wells has fallen Asleep at the Wheel, but the official report of the police to the conclusion that only the car on the truck “unknown reasons”. The driver of the tractor and trailer, Jose Luis Wagner of Chesapeake, Va., was cited for unlawfully parking along the shoulder in an area clearly marked “No parking.”

A review of police records and interviews with family members ready to discuss killed few links between the accidents. Without having alcohol or drugs. All deceased persons, with the exception of Marcheggiani, was in the back seat, wearing seat belts. What is certain: All athletes were competing in southern Maryland Athletic Conference and all were affected by chance, terrible fate.

“There is nothing more devastating,” said Dave Anderson, Lackey’s sports director for the past 23 years. “While the potential - what could it be? We will never know. ”

Not far from Lackey, there is a tree along Highway 227, was a page of a fatal accident in May 1999. Two miles on the road, by the Mattawoman Creek, another tree is gouged five centimetres deep with a bumper cars herds scattered around the trunk. A Mylar balloon deflation, reads, “We Love You” depends on one of its subsidiaries.

A quarter mile ahead on the same street, there is a huge oak, it is reported that nearly 12 centimeters from the edge of the highway, with a bark all gouged out, on the one hand, the culmination of a front bumper.

Based on this tree a small wooden cross broken in two, the vertical axis standing - RIP MEMORY love, “top to bottom - and the horizontal, with” Eric “written on one end and” Joe “On the other, on the ground, collecting snow.

It is a Tazmanian Devil puppet lies in the grass. It is a crown of trees and wilting roses on its base. It is a machine card printed in the bouquet of roses.

“Even if you away,” he said, “nothing can get rid of memories / That is what we use to us strong / That’s what we do not forget, Joe.”

This was here that Joseph and Eric Graham Wade died, and where Marques Fincher, threw the car, suffered a bruised lung, but survived. According to a police report, Mr. Graham has lost control of the car, led a portion of the roadway, then overcorrected, which helps turn the car on the highway, where he met the tree on the passenger side.

For Lackey, it was the second such tragedy to strike within one month and a half. Six weeks earlier, Erin and Joshua Davis were killed, with a third teenager unidentifizierte at Fort Belvoir.

After Lackey’s Anderson, was rarely the school year, which is not at least one dead students, mostly in car accidents. “I ask our young drivers are they now have enough experience to speed traffic flow outside today? I do not know the answer.

With its corridors flooded sadness advisor for the second time in six weeks, students Lackey’s. A group of student leaders, began spreading a petition demanding that the driver training classes in school. In Maryland, Garrett County offers such courses as part of its regular curriculum, three other departments as their offer school.

Lackey’s petition was sent by hundreds of students, teachers and community members, before he went to Charles County Board of Education.

“They have made many proposals,” said Kathy Levanduski, the board’s chair. “But in the end, the astronomical cost is a factor, and it was the extraction of schools because of costs.”

Andrew Krajewski, director of driver training on the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, such petition, said his office to perform an effort quite regularly, when there is a rash of fatal accidents in a defined area. Krajewski office focuses on improving the quality of education in private schools transport.

In the case of drivers-ed was in public schools, students in general, the price of one half - about 15 weeks. In response to one hour per day of school, class is currently working 75 hours or 21 / 2 times, which is now needed.

“Education is just one step,” said Krajewski. “The second stage of conduct is much more convenient under surveillance. And thirdly, you need under parental supervision. Parents should be aware that control of the vehicle.”

Some experts say drivers often Rookie poor control of the exercise of their vehicles.

“The young novice drivers,” said Robert Sternberg, professor of psychology and education at Yale. “And there are some mistakes that you feel like experts, even if it build. One thing is egocentricity. Another reason is that they do not believe that the long-term consequences of what they do as such as drinking and driving. Another is omniscience, and I quote: They think they know everything.

“If you have children, you have, thanks to him. They are not old enough to know how they did not know. Then there’s the sense of invulnerability. Bad things go to other people, but not by themselves . ”

Athletes may also be vulnerable, “said Sternberg,” because the same things that gives them a good athlete - that aggressiveness and willingness to take risks - can they in danger in other areas. If you combine their status as beginners, and these errors, plus a young person’s passion already at risk, which is where the end with an extra vulnerability to accidents.

Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death among people of Maryland, at the age of 15 to 20 The same is true nationally. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 5000 young people from driving in automatic mode age die each year from accidents in Germany.

The search for explanations can be maddening. It can force, as a father Larry Pion, for long solitary hours drive from his house on the spot fault six times in six months. It can be done, Nancy Pion, as stringent with their children than other children she has called “The Warden” itself debt Dustin death. It can convince the legislature to propose new legislation and psychologists, new theories.