9 teens hurt 4 dead in crash from party

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Registered: 08-03-2003
9 teens hurt 4 dead in crash from party
8
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 11:09am

Do you let your teens go to late-night parties? This sad article describes 4 kids who were killed driving in a car packed with 9 kids after leaving a party a 1:45 in the morning. The kids were 14, 15, and 16----it just seems so young to be out at a party past 1:30 in the am....

Whats your thought on this story? Do you let your kids out late on weekend nights and am I the only one scratching there head wondering where were the parents at?????

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/254285,6_1_NA13_CRASH_S1.article




Edited 2/13/2007 11:51 am ET by jenny3kidsmom
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 11:21am

I couldn't read the article because it requires a login.

Pam
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 11:40am

I don't understand why the girl didnt call her parents or why the girl was so desperate to leave the party in question

It is possible the parents didnt know there was a party. It could have been a girls slumber party at someones house and parents didnt check the story with said parents OR the girls snuck out after the hosting parents fell asleep.

Or...yeah, the parents could have gone along with the plan.

It's hard to tell. I know DS2 and a friend climbed out a basement window after we fell asleep and we didnt know until like a year later. And, relaying this info to our next door neighbors who are late 20s/early 30s, we were told "Oh, we've never seen your son but the kid across teh street......" So I think it is more common than many realize

So sad. I feel especially bad for the friends who were called for assistance and didnt provide it-how could they have known the outcome? Yet they are destined to live with all this guilt of 'if only...'.

No, my kids were not allowed to be out past whatever the legal curfew was by age. DS2 certainly broke curfew but not that young(more like 11/12 grade)

But....they did sleepovers and no, I didnt check everytime.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2006
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 12:41pm

This is such a tragedy. From the article it appears the driver will face serious criminal charges, although that will not bring back the teens killed in the accident. Heartbreaking.

In our home curfew is 11:30 for our 16yo DD on weekends. Driver's licenses in North Carolina are graduated with limits on the number of passengers in a vehicle. So these are helpful to us as guidelines, currently she cannot drive after 9pm unless coming home from work and cannot have more than one passenger in her vehicle.

She is not allowed at parties unless I KNOW and SPEAK to the parents at the home the party is hosted. Additionally, I know who is driving her home if she is not driving. She has always been very responsible about calling if that information is to change. On occasion I have refused to let someone drive her home and she of course is embarrassed that her Mom has to pick her...but she arrives home safely yet horribly embarrassed. She will get over it!

Prayers to the parents of those children!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2006
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 3:13pm

That is so sad! DS17 still has a 12:00 curfew although we did let him stay out until 1:00 on New Year's Eve. He can no longer go to sleepovers after he was suspended from school for having admitted to drinking a few sips of rum. Only after that incident did we learn that he had begun drinking at sleepovers this past summer, and that DS23 had snuck out the basement window when he was in HS. (We would have learned the same things if the school had NOT suspended him, or had some alternative to suspension, and informed us of the incident. Our punishment would have been the same, and his change in social behavior would have been the same. His missing 5 days of school, suffering depression and falling grades could have been avoided. Zero-tolerance policies are immoral.)

We've always had the rule of no more than 4 kids in a car, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's been violated by both sons. We did not routinely call the parents of the boys hosting the sleepovers--only occasionally did that. In retrospect I suppose we should have, but then if they sneak out of THAT home, how much good would it do?

I did print the article and DS17 WILL read it aloud to me. We can never warn them enough. Thanks.

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http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/october/meet_the_new_health_.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTBYQlQ7yM

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-10-2007
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 4:31pm


Just wondering how long you will ban sleepovers.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-10-2007
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 4:34pm
Thanks for the article.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-1999
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 7:12pm

A friend of mine has a DS 15 who goes to school with these kids, it sounds like the whole community is really shaken by this. I guess I'd have to wonder why someone who is 8-10 years older than these kids was driving them - though my friend says there have been rumors that there was supposed to be another driver who was supposed to pick up some of the kids but he/she never showed up.

I think this is awfully late for kids this age to be out too - at 15 my DD is only allowed out til 10 on school nights and midnight on weekends - as long as she maintains honor roll grades and stays out of trouble. Some parents I guess are too busy having their own lives to question how kids might be leading theirs.
Rose

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2006
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 9:03pm

We gave in on some of the other stuff, so we plan on enforcing the "no sleepover" rule as long as he's living with us. I think it was on this site that someone wrote "Nothing good happens after midnight." And we just figure we'd rather extend his curfew occasionally when there's something special going on than let him spend the night. (He did go with a friend to MSU for a weekend, so we did show we trusted him then.) And we are letting him go with that friend's family to FL for spring break, and we're paying for his air & board. We just felt the punishment of no Puerto Vallarta with a whole gang of kids had to stick.

His depression lifted 80% by mid-December--thanks for asking. The last 20% seemed to go in one day in January--the day he no longer had to park on a side street where everyone could see him walking to the HS each day. I remember wondering one day when he came back from school, how did this happy kid get back in the house? Then later that night he told me, "Guess what, I can park in the school parking lot again." The stigma of being a "bad kid" was affecting him twice a day for three months when he walked to and from his car, as all the parents drove by to pick up their kids. I don't want any more kids to go through what mine did, and that's why I'm still fighting. We're confident DS will stay clean through HS, and hopefully through college, too.

-----------------------------------------------
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/october/meet_the_new_health_.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTBYQlQ7yM