Speakers Offer Cautionary Tale to New Drivers

On the evening of Thursday September 10 the curriculum at SHS turned from academics to driving safety when seniors and their parents met in the auditorium to attend a mandatory meeting for students who wished to obtain campus parking permits. As an SHS senior driver, I waited with my peers and parents in the auditorium and heard an occasional grumble from classmates about not being able to come and go quickly to obtain parking privileges. However, Youth Outreach worker Lauren Pomerantz and Assistant Principal Chris Griffen quickly drew focus and concern when they introduced speakers, Jacy Good and Steve Johnson. Mr. Griffen offered some frightening statistics: motor vehicle accidents are the lead cause of teenage death in the United States. Good went beyond the numbers to give us an understanding of what that could really mean for us.

In 2008, Good graduated Muhlenburg College as an honors student. She was excited about her plan for the future: she would move to Brooklyn, work for Habitat for Humanity, and continue dating her college sweetheart Steve Johnson. These plans were abruptly interrupted in the middle of rural Pennsylvania on her final drive home from school. Her parents were driving at a legal speed when a car drove through a red light at an intersection, causing a deadly collision. The driver was an eighteen-year-old – a senior at the local high school. He had been driving and while talking on the phone with friends when he made a mistake that took the lives of both of Good's parents.

While her parents were beyond saving, Good was rushed to the hospital. She had a ten percent chance of living through the night. "She looked like death. I couldn't recognize her," Johnson recalled.

The accident was so severe that Good can remember neither the crash nor her time in the hospital. She suffered a myriad of harm, including partially collapsed lungs, broken legs, and brain damage. Miraculously, she was eventually able to rehabilitate herself and return to her childhood home, where she realized that her parents were really gone. Good's brother had to tell their 85-year-old grandmother that her child had died while he planned a funeral and prayed for his sister.

Good stressed the idea that a seemingly small action, such as responding to a phone call, can have an enormous ripple effect. For example, her mother's death affected the hundreds of children to whom she taught English every day.

Good and Johnson spoke to their audience knowing that this new generation of drivers can prevent a similar tragedy. The founded an organization called Hang Up and Drive to educate young drivers about the danger of driving and talking on the phone. I looked around the auditorium to see the previously antsy crowd taking out phones to download apps that respond to calls and messages saying that the user is busy driving. People started signing pledges to be responsible drivers that were circulated by the speakers.

Even though the speaker's message is easy to ignore because their tragedy did not directly involve us, they are invaluable to hear as they bring us back to reality every now and then. While laws and regulations promote safe driving, the drivers and passengers are the ones who can truly control a situation. As teenagers, we will continue to want to play our music so everyone on the block can hear, and speed up like we will live forever. However, wake-up calls like Johnson's and Good's make for more moments in which we doubt our invincibility. They remind us that our fates, and the fates of others are on the road, are our responsibility.

The assembly was sponsored the Scarsdale High School PTA Safety Committee and the Scarsdale High School Administration.