Traffic crashes taking toll on youths

The No. 1 cause of teenage deaths in Florida has claimed 5 local youths in the last year

January 31, 2009, Robbyn Brooks, Daily News

Five local teenagers have been killed in vehicle accidents since January 2008.

Of those, investigators believe two of the fatal wrecks involved alcohol in some way. One accident occurred as a teen tried to avoid hitting an animal, and two others are pending investigations and toxicology reports.

Traffic crashes are the No. 1 cause of teen deaths in both Florida and the United States. According to data from the Florida Highway Patrol, there were more than 800,000 teenage drivers in 2006, the last year figures are available. About 37,000 of them were involved in crashes, and the youths had been drinking in 1,090 of those cases.

"I had almost stopped fearing that knock at the door," said Cory Hale, whose 19-year-old son died after a crash May 6, 2008. "I thought he knew he could call me. He'd called me in the past."

Cameron Ainsworth-Hale was thrown from the back of a moped when it collided with a sport utility vehicle.

Investigators say the moped's driver, 20-year-old Shaun Patrick Mahoney, had alcohol in his system. He was arrested Thursday and charged with DUI manslaughter, and his arrest report noted his blood alcohol content after the crash was 0.115/0.116.

Ainsworth-Hale was taken to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, where he was pronounced brain dead and removed from life support May 7. Mahoney was treated and released with cuts, bruises and a broken tailbone, according to Cpl. Brian Hough, the traffic homicide investigator for the Fort Walton Beach Police Department.

"Cameron chose. It was a conscious decision he made and I've come to terms with that," Cory Hale said. "As a mother, I can only hope his death makes others think about their choices."

According to statistics from the Florida Department of Transportation and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, two out of three teens who die as passengers are in vehicles driven by other teens. That was the case with Ainsworth-Hale and also with Meghan Burkhart-Smith, a 16-year-old who was killed Jan. 4 when the vehicle she was in ran a stop sign and hit a tree.

The statistics also say that 64 percent of passengers under 20 years old who are killed in crashes weren't wearing seat belts.

That was the situation in the wreck that killed Tyler Jones, 17, in Baker on Dec. 28. The previous month - on Nov. 26 - 17-year-old Mitchell Kertis was killed in a one-vehicle rollover wreck. Investigators have not said whether he was wearing a seat belt, but he was partially thrown from the vehicle.

Inexperience and immaturity, combined with speed, alcohol, not wearing seat belts, distracted driving, drowsy driving and nighttime driving are some of the behaviors linked to the high fatality rate for teen drivers, according to the FHP.

"Sometimes they don't realize the consequences of their actions," said Pete Wolniewicz, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for Okaloosa and Walton counties. "It's up to adults to educate them."

Wolniewicz's 22-year-old daughter, Christina, was killed by a 17-year-old drunken driver in 1981. Wolniewicz has been trying to educate local youths ever since. He also works with MADD to pass new legislation.

"Every year we go to Tallahassee and walk the halls of the state Capitol and talk to the representatives," Wolniewicz said. "Increasing the penalties for people who provide alcohol to minors is on our agenda for this year. The teens have to get it somewhere."

Others who have been affected by teenage traffic accidents are starting closer to home. Hale has been working with Emerald Coast Dirt & Vert skate park in Fort Walton Beach to remind other teens about traffic dangers.

The skate park will place a sign on Cameron Ainsworth-Hale's favorite obstacle. It's now known as "Cam's box." There's also a banner that will find a permanent home on a new feature at the park, and the Cameron Ainsworth Foundation allows four people to use the park at no cost.

"They have it in their minds every time they roll around the park," said Bill Madden with Emerald Coast Dirt & Vert. "It constantly reminds them that they are there and Cameron is not."

Madden said he worries about the teens he sees at the park, the choices they make and the lack of seriousness when it comes to driving. However, Madden said he's seen a decline in the careless ways teens have been leaving his facility.

"When they lost him, I feel like it changed a lot of them," Hale said of her son's impact on other teens. "Losing him opened their eyes."

Hale cautions other parents to talk to their kids often about dangers on the road and elsewhere. She said she thinks sometimes teens don't call their parents for help because of the way they've reacted to small things.

"We get angry sometimes over little things," Hale confessed, "but when it comes to safety and the well-being of our children, everything else goes away. They need to hear you say, ‘If you get in a bad situation, I am here for you.'

"The only thing you can do is be open and honest with your children."

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