More Tears for Teens Lost in Crashes

"He told me he wanted to be a lawyer," said his father, Humberto, who stood in the yard with friends and family members, many of them hugging and in tears. Humberto Rosales, a landscaper, said he brought his family here from El Salvador 11 years ago.

He disputed police and media reports that his son was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. Buckling up is a strict family rule, he said. "Oswaldo used to say that he wasn't comfortable unless he was wearing his seat belt," said Juan Caceres, a family friend.

Just before 7 last night in Anne Arundel, a 16-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman suffered life-threatening injuries when their car left the road in the 600 block of Brock Bridge Road and flipped over in the Maryland City area, east of Laurel. Two other people in the car were injured less seriously.

The critically injured teenagers were flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, as was a 20-year-old man, said Michael Cox, a county fire department spokesman.

A fourth person, whom Cox could not identify, was taken to Laurel Regional Hospital with minor injuries. The cause of the crash was under investigation last night.

The Anne Arundel crash was the latest in a string of accidents involving teens in the Maryland suburbs. The deadliest was a Nov. 6 crash in which four friends from La Plata were killed. None was wearing a seat belt. A day earlier, two teenagers on their way to school in Calvert County were fatally injured in a collision between their vehicle and a box truck.

Another fatality, involving a 17-year-old, came Nov. 12 in Montgomery when a vehicle hit a tree in the Wheaton area. None of the four occupants of that car was licensed to drive, police said.

In the La Plata crash, the driver was too young under Maryland law to have teenage passengers.

The accidents have occurred despite laws passed in 2005 to tighten control over younger drivers. Maryland's graduated system prohibits licensed teenage drivers from carrying passengers younger than 18 who are not immediate family members during their first five months of driving unless an adult is in the car. Teens are also barred from driving between midnight and 5 a.m. and from using a cellphone behind the wheel during their first two years of driving.

At 19, Gomez is old enough to carry passengers who are not family members.

For parents of novice drivers, the news of another fatal crash involving a teenager was sobering. Adolfo Castro, waiting in the pickup lane at Richard Montgomery yesterday, said he won't allow his 17-year-old son to drive anywhere except to school and back without an adult.

"I spent two years teaching him to drive even before he got his license, and after a year I'm still driving with him," Castro said. "Not enough parents do that."

Castro's daughter, Gabriella, 15, was a friend of the two students who were killed and was often Orellana's partner in dance class. "He was better than anyone," she said. "He was a natural showoff."

Friends had planned to hold their vigil at the site of the crash. But school administrators, fearing another tragedy on the narrow road, persuaded them to gather on the school grounds.

Staff writer Clarence Williams contributed to this report.