Crash aftermath: Teens’ deaths renew debate about licenses

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 11:28 a.m.

The car crash that killed three Henderson 15-year-olds Monday has renewed the debate about whether Nevada needs tougher licensing laws, as victims' parents and advocates of changes suggest the Legislature blew an opportunity earlier in the year to save lives.

Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, who has pushed unsuccessfully for a stricter graduated license for teen drivers during each of the last four legislative sessions, said she will again try to get the bill passed at the next session, in 2005. It will be the first bill she introduces, she said.

The deaths of the teens on Monday were beyond heartbreaking for her, she said.

"As a mother, I weep for the parents who lost their children," Cegavske said Thursday. "As a legislator, I have to wonder if we could have saved lives."

During the last legislative session Cegavske's bill, which soared through a Senate vote before dying in Assembly, would have prohibited drivers under 17 from transporting nonrelatives under 18 for six months.

The bill would have also increased the drivers education requirement to include 10 hours of night-time practice behind the wheel.

Relatives of Kyle Poff, one of the three boys killed in the early-morning wreck, have that same regret. They're joining Cegavske's call for tighter licensing laws for teen drivers.

Poff, a sophomore at Coronado High School, was killed along with classmate Josh Parry. Green Valley High School sophomore Travis Dunning also died in the crash, while classmate Cody Fredericks remains at University Medical Center in fair condition. The driver of the Pontiac Grand Am, Sean Larimer, 16, was released from UMC Wednesday. He received his license nine weeks before the crash.

The five had been best friends since elementary school.

"You have to be 21 to buy a handgun and that's a weapon," said Poff's brother, Chad Hernandez. "A car can be the same thing but they give the keys to any 16-year-old free and clear. That doesn't make any sense to me."

A 1998 study by the federal traffic safety administration found that teen drivers had the highest crash risk of any age group, with 16-year-olds the most likely to be involved in a single-car wreck blamed on driver error. For each additional teen in the car, the risk of a fatal wreck increased.

That's one of the reasons so many states -- at least 40 -- have graduated licensing programs that place greater restrictions on their youngest drivers.

Nevada's licensing process for teenaged drivers is one of the weakest -- and most unusual -- in the country, said Lisa Foster, spokeswoman for the American Automobile Association of Nevada.

Most other states' graduated license programs limit 16-year-old drivers from transporting people under age 21 for six months to a year, Foster said.

In Nevada drivers under 16 are restricted for 90 days from transporting non-family members under age 21. The restriction is 60 days for 16-year-olds and 30 days for 17-year-olds. Larimer received his license 63 days prior to Monday's crash.

States that have adopted stricter licensing processes have been rewarded with significant drops in fatalities involving teenaged drivers as well as motor vehicle accidents overall, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

California saw a 21 percent reduction in teen crashes after adopting a graduated driver's license, while the number of wrecks dropped 32 percent in Kentucky and 29 percent in North Carolina.

In 2001, the latest year for which statistics are available, 34 Nevadans ages 16 and 17 died in car crashes in which they or another teen was driving, according to the Safe Community Partnership of Clark County.

Monday's deadly crash in Henderson was only the latest in a string of fatal wrecks in recent years involving inexperienced teenage drivers in the Las Vegas Valley.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, a Democrat who is also deputy police chief in Henderson, said he has mixed feelings about the push for a stricter licensing process for teenagers. In most of the recent fatalities, it's unlikely a tougher licensing process would have made a difference, Perkins said.

Perkins said he would support more stringent driver's education requirements. The law currently requires parents to sign a form stating their child has spent at least 50 hours in supervised practice behind the wheel before they apply for a license.

Once a staple of the Clark County School District's curriculum, driver's education was reduced to a correspondence course in the mid-1990s because of budget cuts. The district should reinstate its previous comprehensive driver's ed class, Perkins said.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said Thursday he would be "delighted" to see the such a bill passed as long as the state also provided the funds to cover the cost of offering such a program.

Rick Payne, a founder of Driver's Edge, a road course class that gives students experience in handling unexpected situations such as skid control and panic breaking, said the state needs to create a mandatory curriculum to be taught at all driver's education schools.

"A graduated license will help, but it's a Band-Aid on the bigger problem," said Payne, a former professional race car driver who is in his second year of teaching the course at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "I've had a couple dozen parents call me since Monday's wreck asking for recommendations of driving schools for their kids. I can't give them one, because I can pick 11 different schools and get 11 different things being taught."

Poff's parents, Rick and Sharlene, say they are angry at themselves for not holding their son to stricter rules when it came to riding in cars with his friends. Poff, who turned 15 in August, was still months away from being eligible for his own learner's permit.

"I feel like we let Kyle down," Sharlene Poff said, as she held a photograph of her tuxedo-clad son and his friends at a homecoming dance just weeks earlier. "We're his parents, our job was to protect him and we didn't do enough."

Henderson Police say they are investigating whether the young men were at a house party prior to the crash where alcohol was served, possibly with a parent's knowledge.

The Poffs said repeatedly they did not want to see Larimer prosecuted, even if alcohol is determined to have been a factor. And Rick Poff said he fully expects it will be, based on conversations he's had with police, as well as friends who saw the group of boys at a party minutes before they piled into Larimer's car.

"Kyle knew better then to get in a car with someone who had been drinking," said his sister, Melissa, 20. "Every kid in that car had my cell phone and they knew they could call me for a ride. One stupid mistake and three lives are gone."

The stories told by family and friends painted a picture of Kyle as a a fun-loving and talented baseball player whose sincere concern for the welfare of others manifested itself time and time again.

When classmates teased a disabled student, Kyle stepped in to stop them. During the World Series earlier this fall he rooted for the underdog Florida Marlins in the World Series because he thought the New York Yankees had won enough and it was time for someone else to experience the thrill. He called his sister daily to check up on her after she moved out of the family home last year.

"I wish every kid out there could see what this has done to us, how this has torn us into pieces," Melissa Poff said. "Every friend of Kyle's who comes through here, I tell them it's better to call your parents for a ride and get grounded then to never wake up again."

Sharlene Poff said she fears that once the immediate grief of the boys' deaths passes students will resume dangerous habits.

"Weeks are going to go by and kids won't be thinking about it as much," she said. "That's why the adults and the law need to step in. We can't expect our children to protect themselves."