The two cars rocketed along a darkened highway, the 16-year-old drivers topping 90 miles an hour as they headed home from a high school hockey game.
One of the drivers had received his license just six hours earlier.
The other had her license for all of four months.
Riding in the passenger seat of the girl’s car was Justin Buscher, also 16, a popular football player growing fond of the girl behind the wheel.
His last 2 1/2 seconds of consciousness were spent in a deadly spin that began at 91 miles an hour and ended on impact with a light pole. He died within the hour.
To law enforcement, insurance companies and highway researchers, it was a classic example of how speeding kills teens. Lacking experience and inclined to push limits, they are involved in more preventable crashes than any other age group.
In Illinois and across the country, speed is the leading factor in fatal teen crashes, surpassing drunken driving and refusal to wear seat belts. It was blamed in crashes that killed 133 teens in Illinois between 2003 and 2005. Nationally, speed was involved in more than a third of all fatal accidents involving teens in 2004.
Research into the teen mind and adolescent decision-making is now suggesting new strategies to target speeding and reckless driving.
Peer pressure, the powerful force that compels some teens to speed in the first place, is perhaps the only thing that can slow them down, researchers say.
Those who are mourning Justin see some hope that is the case at Springfield’s Sacred Heart-Griffin High School.
– – –
The Wednesday night hockey game at Springfield’s Nelson Center was crowded with Sacred Heart-Griffin students cheering against rival Chatham High School in February.
In the emptying parking lot afterward, Justin Buscher declined a late restaurant run with friends, insisting he needed to get home. As the high school crowd thinned, he climbed into a red Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by a girl he had taken a recent interest in.
She pulled out of the parking lot behind a silver Cadillac Catera driven by one of Justin’s teammates on the football team.
Of the two drivers, the girl had the most time behind the wheel. She got her license on her 16th birthday, four months before that February night.
The boy behind the wheel of the Cadillac had turned 16 that very day and had taken and passed the license test just that afternoon. He was driving that night without supervision for the first time.
Justin and the other boy were teammates on the 2005 high school football team that won the Class 5A state championship in November.
The friend is a hulking lineman, looking every bit of his 6 feet 3 inches and 267 pounds. His teammates and friends say he has a wicked sense of humor.
Next to him, wide receiver Justin Buscher was a slight 5-feet 10 inches and 174 pounds. He had a sense of adventure that skirted the edges of trouble, making him a favorite of teammates. His tousled hair and sensitive eyes made him popular with girls at school.
From the parking lot, the Cadillac and the Eclipse headed in the direction of Veterans Parkway, one set of taillights disappearing after the other.
– – –
Police and coroner’s reports don’t detail how or why the 16-year-old drivers began to race.
Students at their high school–many driving home on the same road–say they saw one driver pass the other quickly, and that the other rushed to catch up.
By the time the two cars passed Dr. Dean Williams, 37, his wife, Teresa, 36, and their two young sons on a remote, open stretch of Veterans Parkway north of town, they were flying.
“They zoomed right behind us. In less than 10 seconds, they were far away, almost at the next intersection,” Teresa Williams said.
Watch them have an accident, Dean Williams thought.
His wife had a similar reaction and wanted to make a point of it to their children.
“I turned around and said to them that driving like that can cause accidents,” Teresa Williams said. “I told them the importance of driving the speed limit.”
With that, her husband gasped.
The Eclipse was spinning.
As the Cadillac sped on, the Williams family saw the brake lights of the Eclipse disappear and headlights replace them as the car spun. A cloud of dust sparkled in the winter night as the Eclipse smashed into the traffic light at Palomino Road.
“And all that happened in the space of a couple seconds,” Dean Williams said.
– – –
Speed kills in three ways.
It reduces the amount of time a driver has to react, expands the distance a vehicle needs to stop and heightens exponentially the destructive energy of a crash.
Speed gave the girl only moments to react when the back of her car swung to the left as she switched lanes. Once the spin started, the car devoured empty road, barely slowing as it slid 300 feet into the light pole–almost three times the distance needed to stop at 55 m.p.h.
The impact far exceeded what the car was designed to endure.
Government crash tests for cars hitting walls and solid posts are done at 35 miles an hour. Doubling the speed to 70 miles an hour quadruples the crash energy.
“There’s no chance,” said Albert King, chairman of biomedical engineering at Wayne State University in Michigan and a crash safety researcher.
As the car shrinks rapidly, the force of impact swings legs, arms and heads toward objects inside. Something similar happens inside the body as organs press and rupture against the rib cage and each other.
The unsupported head becomes a missile on a tether, reaching forces in tests equivalent to 90 times the force of gravity–straining the spine and base of the skull, said Paul Begeman, a researcher at Wayne State. Even the brain moves inside the head.
This is in crash tests done at the equivalent of 35 to 40 miles an hour, researchers point out.
Though it had slowed to about 80 miles an hour, the car Justin was riding in decelerated to zero, and then reversed direction in a tenth of a second as it bounced off the light post.
Both driver and passenger were instantly unconscious, and Justin was mortally injured. An autopsy determined brain trauma killed him, but it was far from the extent of his injuries.
The impact sliced open the boy’s aorta, the body’s biggest artery, causing severe internal bleeding, said Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone. The force of impact broke the base of his skull, where a hemorrhage caused more internal bleeding. Blood ran from a slash and fracture on the side of his head.
Two weeks later, the jury at the coroner’s inquest ruled the death a reckless homicide. With Justin’s parents’ approval, it was prosecuted as a juvenile case, and the surviving teens each pleaded guilty May 31 to aggravated reckless driving.
They lost their licenses and were put on probation until they are 21, according to the State Journal-Register. The juvenile court file is sealed. The Tribune is not naming the teens because they are juveniles.
– – –
In a sense, the fatal crash began in the teens’ minds.
Research since 1999 shows the teenage mind undergoing massive development, especially under the influence of sex hormones. Though as intelligent as adults, the changes make teens more easily overwhelmed by emotional and social factors while making decisions.
Other differences are also apparent. Working this year with the Allstate Foundation to develop a new safe-driving initiative, a teen marketing firm in Northbrook asked teens and adults to define a “good” driver.
“Adult answers would be that `good’ is synonymous with `safe,'” said Peter Zollo, president of Teenage Research Unlimited. “To teens, a `good’ driver means a `skilled’ driver.”
Research shows that peer pressure and a non-authoritarian message are the most effective ways to make teens change risky behavior. The insurance industry seeks to use those idiosyncrasies of the teen brain to persuade them to drive more safely.
The Allstate Foundation in September launched a national safe driving movement for teens. Called “Keep the Drive,” it encourages adolescents to get educated about risky driving, said Susan Duchak, who heads the foundation’s Teen Driving Program.
Student leaders will hold a number of meetings nationwide in October, Duchak said. From there, they will be encouraged to get other peers to become activists in their hometowns.
The message to drive safely sounds better from a fellow teen, they have learned.
– – –
They are learning the same thing at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School.
Until the accident and its fallout, many teens at the school said they and their friends sped with regularity.
News of the crash hit hard. Some, like Kiley Enno, spent that night huddled with crying friends. Others found out the next morning–like football teammate Robby Mosher, 17, whose screaming woke his father. At Sacred Heart-Griffin, the normally noisy school commons was dreadfully silent the next morning.
“Silence, except for sobbing,” remembered school president Sister Katherine O’Connor.
From that stunned silence, forceful voices rose.
Justin’s friends began insisting peers be more considerate behind the wheel. It snowballed to other drivers at school, and from there to more distant circles of friends.
“It affected everyone–even the people that didn’t know them,” said upperclassman Anna Alexander, 17. “If anyone’s driving stupid now you say, `You can’t do that.’ You’re more aware of the consequences.”
Whether or not the change lasts, the peer pressure to slow down had an almost instant effect.
Enno stopped speeding, as did her 18-year-old brother Michael, also a student at the school. Alexander has seen classmates shun drivers who ignore warnings and take too many risks. Mosher makes a point of setting the cruise control at the speed limit.
“We look after each other more,” he said. “We make sure everyone puts on their seat belt, and that no one is speeding–I mean, everybody.”
“Most people were speeding. Afterwards, everyone’s noticed they’re not invincible–that it could happen to us,” he continued. “And everybody slowed down.”
WHAT PARENTS CAN DO
Educators, social workers and researchers into adolescent behavior agree on a few simple tools parents can use to head off risky behaviors such as speeding–and what to do if they think their children are speeding.
Be an appropriate role model. Teens may bend under peer pressure, but they take behavioral cues from parents first. When you drive, don’t speed. No one can undermine your authority like you can.
Sit down with your teen. Even if you can’t be with them all the time, you can let them know where you stand. A direct, face-to-face discussion early on is essential so you can clearly set out your expectations for their behavior behind the wheel and your responsibilities as the parent of a teen driver. At the same conversation, clearly set out the consequences for failing to meet your expectations. This can take the form of a written contract–to both focus the conversation and remove arguing points later. Some examples can be found at ipromiseprogram.com, parentingteendrivers.com, and teendriving.com/drivingcontract2.htm.
Limit your teen’s use of the car. A driver’s license is nice, but you hold the keys. Car privileges can be taken away whenever teens drive irresponsibly. Moreover, teens speed–and are killed–most often on weekends and late at night. Consider letting them drive during those hours only after proving their responsibility behind the wheel. That means you’ll have to do late-night chauffeuring a little longer.
If all else fails, consider technology. Tracking devices can be bought online ranging from GPS units to downloadable black boxes. Costs range between $140 and $495. Experts suggest this as a last step and less preferable than establishing and maintaining a trusting relationship with your child.
Source: Gary Direnfeld, executive director of I Promise Program Inc; Jennifer Filpi, senior counselor at Families and Adolescents In Recovery; Judith Smetana, director of the developmental psychology program at the University of Rochester.
———-
jjanega@tribune.com
ON THE INTERNET
Read the complete series at chicagotribune.com/teendrivers
