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AUGUSTA – Maine police officers are sick of finding dead and injured teenagers when they arrive at car accidents.
They are sick of having to knock on a parent’s door at 2 a.m. to tell them their child is in the morgue.
“Death notifications affect you for the rest of your life,” Don Williams, Maine State Police chaplain, said Wednesday. “You never forget the knock, the look on the parents’ faces, the horrific reactions.”
Williams should know. In the last three months, he has helped notify eight parents that their four children – two 17-year-olds and two 22-year-olds – were killed in car accidents.
If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, Maine’s law enforcement community is banking that a new parent-notification program initiated Wednesday will make a significant dent in Maine’s horrific teen death rate.
In an unprecedented show of solidarity, dozens of law enforcement officers gathered Wednesday afternoon in Augusta for the kick-off of SAFEGuard, a statewide program that notifies parents when their teens have been stopped for traffic infractions.
The one-of-a-kind partnership launched Wednesday between cops and parents is expected to decrease Maine’s high teen death rate – a rate that, per capita, averages higher than any other state.
“That phone call may be the most important call a police officer ever makes,” Maj. Randy Nichols of the Maine State Police said during the press conference.
The slogan of the new effort is: “Your parents will be the first to know.”
Thirty-one cruisers – representing state, county and local police from York to Presque Isle – ambulances, rescue vehicles and LifeFlight’s air ambulance encircled the officers, an indication that all of Maine’s law enforcement community and beyond is committed to the program, a simple program that is expected to yield big results.
“This is a police-parent partnership,” Nichols said. “We need to make a special effort to save our youngest and most inexperienced drivers. Instead of being the first to know [about an infraction], parents are often the last to know.”
Nichols said the program is the first of its kind in the country. A few other states have programs that require parents to register themselves and their children for notification, but in Maine, a simple traffic stop is what will trigger a phone call to mom or dad – by every law enforcement agency in the state.
Instead of that knock at the door at 2 a.m., Maine’s parents can expect to get a telephone call.
“I just stopped your daughter for speeding, and, as a parent, I thought you would like to know” is one scenario Nichols suggested. He said any teenage passengers in an offending vehicle might have calls made home as well.
Nichols said the program has been quietly running for several weeks, and those parents contacted show overwhelming support of the program.
A sad statistic is that from 1999 to 2003, 152 teens were killed on Maine’s roads. Averaged over the four years, the rate is higher than any other state, Philip Weiser, northeast regional director with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Wednesday at the press conference.
“Maine does have a problem, and you are losing lives,” Weiser said.
And it isn’t getting any better.
In 2004 in Maine, 34 teen drivers were involved in fatal crashes resulting in 38 deaths, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for Maine Department of Public Safety.
So far this year, 11 teen drivers have been involved in fatal crashes that resulted in 12 deaths.
“We are not even to mid-July,” McCausland said. “July and August are traditionally our deadliest months.”
The accidents aren’t clustered in population centers either. Fatal crashes involving teens happened this year from Eddington to Harrington to Sebec to Portland.
“So far this year, 12 teens have died,” Col. Craig Poulin of the state police said. “Think of 12 kids you know and erase them. Last year, it was 38. That’s a classroom.”
Weiser noted that “if any other cause was killing these children, it would be declared an epidemic.”
Aroostook County Sheriff James Madore said some parents may not like getting the phone call.
“They may ask, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ and my answer will be ‘No, we do not.'” he said.
Nichols quoted national studies that show that while state laws and enforcement play an important role in preventing teen deaths, parents play the most important role in managing their child’s early driving experience.
Brunswick Police Chief Jerry Hinton, who is president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, said he got one of those calls many years ago. His teenage daughter had passed a stopped school bus. “That call helped me in a partnership to keep her safe,” he said.
Hinton said that the new program is “a concerted effort across the state to help kids from making unwise decisions. We may not give a ticket. We may give a warning. But we will make that phone call.”
“We may never know the lives we save,” Nichols said.
State, county and municipal police departments are being supported in their SAFEGuard efforts by 26 other organizations, including the Maine Department of Transportation, Students Against Drunk Drivers, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the American Automobile Association, the American Association of Retired Persons, Maine Bureau of Health, Maine Youth Voices, the Department of Education, Maine Warden Service, Maine Marine Patrol, Maine Injury Prevention Program, Youth Empowerment Policy Group and others.
Teen motor vehicle fatalities
The following are national statistics for teen motor vehicle fatalities:
. In 2003, a teenager died every hour from Friday to Monday in a motor vehicle accident; one died every other hour the rest of the week.
. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in people ages 3 to 33.
. Teens are involved in 14 percent of all fatal crashes.
. In 25 percent of teen fatal crashes, the teen driver had a blood-alcohol content of more than .08.
. In 2003, 458,000 teenagers were injured in car crashes.
. Teens aged 16-19 represent 6 percent of all U.S. drivers but are involved in 20 percent of all fatal crashes.
. Teens aged 16 and 17 have the highest vehicle crash rate of any age group: 17-year-olds are six times more likely to be involved in a car accident, while 16-year-olds are 20 times more likely.
Statistics provided by the Maine State Police and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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