Just north of Crystal Lake, a crab apple tree was adorned with ornaments of youth and sorrow. Playful road-trip photos dangled near cellophane-wrapped flowers. Homemade CDs nestled against half-burned candles. Ping-Pong paddles shared space with sympathy cards.
On Feb. 19, a speeding Acura TL carrying Jeffrey Mills and Scott Scheckel swerved sideways on Red Barn Road and slammed into the tree, killing the two young friends. They weren't the first Chicago-area teens to die in a car accident this year. And as that roadside memorial withers, others will emerge elsewhere--symbols of a stubborn, agonizing truth: teens and automobiles, too often, are a fatal mix.
Every year, more American teenagers die in car wrecks than any other way. Nationally, that number was 5,610 fatalities in 2004. In the Chicago region alone, from 1994 through 2004, an average of 57 died annually in accidents involving teen drivers.
After a steady drop in the 1980s, teen driving deaths have remained relatively steady for the last 15 years--both in real numbers and the rate per 100,000 teens--enduring with such persistence that some experts are calling for a wide-range public health campaign.
"The public probably knows that teen drivers are at greater risk for fatal accidents," said Laurence Steinberg, psychology professor at Temple University, a national expert on adolescence and author or editor of 10 books on the subject. "What the public doesn't know is what we ought to do about it."
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