Moms put a face on the dangers of teen driving

Published 5:41 pm Saturday, September 5, 2009

Josh Crolley won’t be there. Neither will Tyrone Davis, Justin Stump or Jeffrey “BJ” Brown.

Their absence is what makes a Driving It Home program so heart-wrenching. What makes teens sit up and listen are stories of parents who have lost cherished children.

Josh was a 16-year-old Arlington High School junior in 2007. On an April morning, the car he was driving smashed into a tree south of Highway 530. He died at the scene, leaving his mother childless.

“They say it gets easier as time goes by. It’s a lie,” said Sue Crolley, Josh’s mother. “The first year you’re in total shock. The second year slams you in the face — it did happen. I’ll never have grandchildren, never see him get married, or have his first date. He never got to graduate.

“Those are the things you can never get back,” the Arlington woman said Friday.

Crolley is one of the scheduled speakers at a Driving It Home collision awareness seminar starting at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Stanwood High School auditorium. The teen driving safety program, free and open to the public, will be repeated Oct. 24 at the Everett Civic Auditorium.

The programs are sponsored by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Also on the schedule for Saturday are Kathy Davis, Tyrone Davis’s mother; Jenny Lutz, Jeffrey Brown’s mother; and Aida Stump, mother of Justin Stump. Like Josh, Tyrone, 19, Justin 17, and Jeffrey, 18, were all killed in car crashes.

Sheriff’s Detective Doug Gold, who was instrumental in starting Driving It Home, said the program includes examinations of crash investigations, a speaker from the county Medical Examiner’s Office, and a car-pedestrian accident staged with a mannequin. Rebecca Coon and Robin House, both severely injured in accidents, also tell their stories.

Outside, the cars in which young drivers died are on display. With all that, Gold said, it’s the mothers who really get teens’ attention.

“When they get up and talk, you can hear a pin drop,” Gold said.

To relive the nightmare of losing Josh is “horribly difficult,” Crolley said. “I’m doing it in hope that it shocks kids into realizing what they’d be leaving behind. Nobody plans on getting in a car accident. If they think more about what would happen to a mom and dad if they left them like this, maybe it will make them slow down a little bit, or put that cell phone down.”

Detective John Cummings, of the sheriff’s office collision investigations unit, said the Stanwood School District has welcomed Driving It Home. Many districts which no longer have driver education curriculum haven’t made the seminars a priority, Cummings said.

In June the program was offered in Everett. It wasn’t well attended, he said. He hopes more teens and parents come when Drive It Home returns to the Everett Civic Auditorium in October.

“We think every student should see one of these seminars,” said Tom Levan, Stanwood High School’s driver education instructor. “Parents talk about the sons or daughters they lost. You walk out and the cars are right there, with the parent standing by, and a picture of their son or daughter.”

Levan has taught driving since 1992, before kids had cell phones or text messaging. Technological distractions have made the task of driving all the more perilous, he said. Levan once experienced a close call during an instructional drive.

A student glanced down at her phone when it rang and the car nearly ran off the road, he said. Since then, phones are locked in the trunk during class.

Crolley knows distractions played a role in Josh’s crash. She doesn’t sugarcoat it.

“There were so many distractions — music and a kid who was not supposed to be in the car. On top of all that, they were messing around. It was a wet day and he was going way too fast,” Crolley said.

When teens hear her story, and those of other mothers, Crolley said she sees eyes fill with tears.

“This program makes these kids open their eyes,” she said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Two seminars

Driving It Home, a teen-driving safety seminar hosted by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, is scheduled 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Stanwood High School auditorium, 7400 272nd St. NW, Stanwood.

It will be presented again at 9 a.m. Oct. 24 at the Everett Civic Auditorium.

Both programs are free and open to the public.

They are not suitable for young children.