Teen fatal car crashes
7 teens between age of 16 and 19 are killed each day nationwide
Drivers age 16 to 19 are three times more likely than drivers 20 or older to be in a fatal crash
The death rate of male drivers age 16 to 19 is almost double that of their female counterparts
The presence of teen passengers increases the risk of accident for teen drivers. The more teen passengers, the greater the risk.
Teens are more likely than older drivers to underestimate dangerous situations or not be able to recognize hazardous situations.
Teens are more likely than older drivers to speed and allow shorter distances between vehicles.
Compared with other age groups, teens have the lowest rate of seat belt use.
Source: Centers for Disease Control, 2010
Six months after a truck crashed into a tree killing three teenagers, township police have completed their investigation and will present their findings to a prosecutor next week to determine what, if any, charges will be filed.
“We should know within a month whether charges will be filed,” said Sgt. Mark White. “We’ve finished up and are planning to present sometime next week.”
Six Bellbrook High School students were in an extended cab Dodge Ram pickup when the 17-year-old driver lost control on Wagner Road near Oleva Drive just after 12:30 a.m. Nov. 4. The truck left the roadway, ran over a traffic sign and crashed into a tree, uprooting the tree.
Three of the four young women in the backseat — Julianna Hawk, 14, Sophie Kerrigan, 17, and Skylar Kooken, 16 — were pronounced dead at the scene. The other young woman, Allison Magill, 17; the driver, Jesse Ryan Whitaker, and the young man in the passengers seat, Zachery Morgan, 18, were injured.
Magill spent three weeks in the hospital before returning to school.
Two days before her senior prom, which also marks the six-month anniversary of the accident, Magill made her first comments to the media.
She talked to News Center 7 about the accident and the friends she will miss when she attends Bellbrook’s prom tonight.
“They would have been right next to all of us,” she said of her friends. “It’s tough knowing they’re not here and I am. It’s not very fair, but you’ve got to live with what you have to live with.”
Magill said she was seated on the left side of the backseat when the right side of the truck hit the tree. “It’s scary … just a matter of a couple inches changed whether I would be here or not,” she said. The crash fractured Magill’s collarbone, four ribs and her pelvis in five places, and punctured her lung.
Magill said Morgan, Whitaker and Kooken were the only ones wearing seatbelts.
Whitaker told police he was driving around 50 mph when the crash occurred. Speed limit on that stretch of road is 45 mph.
Magill said she, Kerrigan and Kooken were at a party when Hawk called from another party and asked them for a ride home. Magill said they had earlier been hanging out with Morgan and Whitaker and asked if they could pick them up because Magill’s car had been rear-ended when they were en route to pick up Hawk.
The five piled into the Ram truck and picked up Hawk in Kettering just before the crash occurred.
Police said Whittaker was not tested for drugs or alcohol because there was no probable cause — no physical evidence of alcohol or drug use — to do so.
With the investigation concluded, Janet Carpenter, Sophie Kerrigan’s mother, hopes someone will be held responsible for her daughter’s death.
“It’s a terrible sentence we have to live,” said Carpenter. “I wish it would come to an end.”
Carpenter said she has stayed in contact with investigators. “We want them to take their time to make sure everything is examined and looked at. … I wish it would come to an end only because it’s like a thorn in the eye every single day.”
Kelli Kooken, mother of Skylar Kooken, told News Center 7: “I feel this was an accident, and I feel it in my heart and in my soul. Unfortunately in life sometimes there are unexplainable accidents and tragedies. I can say that because I’m living this hell.”
Kooken said Whitaker will have to deal with the accident for the rest of his life. “I would never want to walk in his shoes. But I can and will speak for Skylar and say that he was her friend, she loved him and she would never want him to be punished by the law for this.”
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