Arturo Betancourt awoke at 3 a.m., unable to sleep, and started searching the Internet for data on fatal traffic accidents.
Three weeks earlier, his 16-year-old daughter Alicia stepped into another teenager's car to go for ice cream four miles from her home in Silver Spring. They were good kids, out with their parents' permission, sober.
But fate and probability rode with them that night -- the raw, undeniable numbers that make teenage drivers four times as likely as older motorists to be involved in a car crash, and three times as likely to die in one. The risk is especially great among 16-year-olds, the country's newest drivers.
Alicia (pronounced Ah-LEE-see-ah) was killed when her friend lost control of his car and spun into a lamppost. Since then, Betancourt, an ophthalmologist who has offices in Glen Burnie and Clarksville, has been looking for something to help him understand, or anything that he could do that might help another family avoid his pain.
"The more I read about the current statistics in teenage driving, the more things need to change," Betancourt, 48, said. "We don't let kids drink until they're 21, but we put them in killing machines before they're really able. It killed my daughter."
In just one month's time, 15 young people have been killed in the Washington region, including a 3-year-old girl, in nine crashes involving teenage drivers. The first occurred Sept. 16, when a 16-year-old Vienna teenager smashed into a tree on a winding road while playing cat-and-mouse with another teenager. The ninth and most recent happened Oct. 17 on Interstate 95 in Virginia, when one passenger died after a 17-year-old girl lost control and rolled a Cadillac sport-utility vehicle filled with members of her rowing team. She had six passengers, more than she was allowed by Virginia law.
Each of the crashes involved cars driven by a teenager with at least one teenage passenger. Excessive speed played a role in seven of the accidents. Failure to wear seat belts contributed to death or injury in seven. Alcohol was a factor in one and was suspected in another. All but three happened after dark, and all but three occurred on a weekend. Inexperience -- such as drivers overreacting after the car drifted onto the shoulder -- played a role in at least four accidents. In every crash but one, the driver was male.
In the wake of the wrecks, legislators, law enforcement officials, advocacy groups and parents have been searching for ways to prevent teenage traffic deaths, including calls for stricter laws, more stringent licensing and driver-education programs, and more parental involvement.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a campaign using athletes, musicians and actors to educate young people about the risks of driving, while Mothers Against Drunk Driving urged states to lengthen the period of time that novice drivers must go before receiving full privileges. AAA Mid-Atlantic called on legislators to pass tougher restrictions on teenage passengers, citing surveys showing nearly 3-to-1 support in Virginia and Maryland.
Nationally, "we lose about 6,000 teen lives a year. I don't know why this is acceptable," said Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "The fact is, we do have a crisis. The fact that these deaths came together at once served to show we have a crisis."
Sometimes, the crashes convey the sheer recklessness of youth.
Two weeks ago in Woodbridge, for instance, 17-year-old Weston Griggs blazed through a 40 mph zone at 75 mph before his Jetta flew off the road and snapped a telephone poll into three pieces. Griggs and his two passengers died in the 3:50 a.m. crash.
Griggs was not supposed to be on the road at that hour, given the state's midnight curfew on drivers under age 18. None of the young men was wearing a seat belt. And police detected an odor of alcohol at the scene and found marijuana in the car, said Prince William County Detective Dennis Mangan. Toxicology reports are pending.
Traffic deaths of teenagers are rising nationwide, up 5 percent in the past 10 years, even as the overall fatality rate for such crashes has dropped. High speed, alcohol and the failure to wear seat belts were the biggest contributors to teenage deaths, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded in a report released this month.
