“I would give anything in the world to have her back,” Jennings said of Young, 35, of Dayton, who was killed May 25, 2015, when the driver of a maroon pickup pulled in front of her and then applied the brakes on Interstate 75 in Moraine, causing her to lose control of her Chevy Trailblazer.
Young’s three nephews were in the car with her but did not suffer major injuries. The driver of the pickup has never been found.
Young, a mother of four, is part of a grim statistic: The number of fatal accidents caused by road rage has increased every year of the last decade.
Road rage is generally defined as uncontrolled anger by a motorist against another driver who may or may not have provoked the violent behavior. Experts attribute the rise to a number of factors, including an increase in the number of vehicles on the roads and more frequent congestion or traffic tie-ups. Witnesses said the driver of the pickup was chasing Young, but police don’t know what started the confrontation. Young had just left the Dayton Mall area.
An Ohio Department of Transportation traffic camera caught the final miles and moments leading up the crash that killed Young. In the video, you see the pickup truck several vehicles behind Young’s Trailblazer .
“Both vehicles were driving at a high rate of speed, in excess of 80 miles an hour on northbound I-75,” said Moraine Police Sgt. Jon Spencer.
The traffic camera did not record what happened as the driver of the pickup truck made a move.
“At some point he decided to speed past the Trailblazer and then cut the vehicle off, slam the brakes on, which caused Miss Young to lost control of the vehicle and flip,” Spencer said.
Young, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the SUV.
“To chase her down, snuff a person’s life out like that. My sister was not a bad person,” said Jennings.
Witnesses described the truck as a maroon, Ford F-250, occupied by a white male driver and possibly a second white male. They said the driver was in his 50’s or 60’s and had a full, white beard. Some of the witnesses said the man looked like Santa Claus. However, none of the witnesses got the man’s license plate number and even the ODOT video did not help Moraine police in their investigation.
“We’ve reviewed all the video from that and we’ve actually had the video enhanced and still, it’s not good enough to capture the license plate number,” Spencer said.
More than half of all fatal crashes involve aggressive driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with excessive speed being the most common factor. That’s frustrating to those who monitor traffic safety because so many of the deaths are preventable.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady, a Centerville psychologist who treats anger issues, including road rage, said for most people anger is controllable.
“This is about character,” he said. “Anger is about a choice that we each make behind the wheel. Anger is dangerous. Anger kills. That’s the extreme. In the middle, anger causes divorces. In the less extreme, anger causes my loss of peace of mind. I lose my heart. I lose my soul and I’m all upset about something I can’t control, like somebody else’s driving habits.”
O’Grady said therapy can help people who simply cannot control their anger. But for most of us, he said we simply need to take responsibility for our moods.
“We can change our mood,” he said. “Your mood is a choice.”
Jennings wishes the man who forced her sister off the road would take responsibility for his actions.
“Have some sense of remorse,” she said. “Maybe they would feel remorseful and come clean.”
Spencer admits leads have dried up and he is hoping to shed some new light on the case. He also believes there are people who may have important information that need to come forward.
“The way these cases work…it’s a puzzle and people contain small pieces of it,” said Spencer. “We try to put the whole thing together and if we can do that, and bring closure to the family, then that would be great.”
OTHER INVESTIGATIONS
What is road rage?
“An assault with a motor vehicle or other dangerous weapon by the operator or passenger(s) of one motor vehicle on the operator or passenger(s) of another motor vehicle caused by an incident that occurred on a roadway.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Commission
By the numbers
247: Number of fatal crashes attributed to road rage in 2013.
56: Percentage of fatal crashes where aggressive driving was said to play a role.
44: Percentage of road rage incidents attributed to a driver getting cut off.
10: Number of consecutive years road rage-involved fatal crashes have increased.