Careless Driving Costs Passenger's Life

At 3:30am on Sunday, October 21, 2012 a Porsche driver lost control, hit a tree, and ripped through several backyards. The passenger was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. The driver sustained minor injuries.

 

According to the Toronto Star report, police officers indicated that the Porsche was a new lease and put the value of the car at about $120,000. Both the passenger and driver are men in their 20s.

 

There are so many things in this tragic story that are tsk-able. So many things that could have been prevented. I know, hindsight is 20/20—but really? The fact that the passenger was ejected was most likely because he was not wearing a seat belt. We are taught from day one to wear our seat belts, governments have laws that reinforce the idea that we should buckle up, and there's even a light that illuminates on our instrument panels when we haven't put our seat belt on. Car manufacturers pour tons of money to make their cars safer and more responsive—but none of that matters if we don't have our seat belt on. I know many of you buckle up... but clearly there are still some out there that think they are beyond the laws of physics. This passenger's life may have been saved if he was wearing a seat belt. 

 

What you do on a Sunday morning is not my business—I was fast asleep at 3:30am. It's totally fine that these young men were out at that hour but what was so important that the driver had to go well above the speed limit to lose control of the vehicle like this?

 

And now the life of one young man is gone and the driver has to live with the consequences of what happened early this morning. I am praying that both families will have the strength to endure what's to come in the next few days, weeks and months.

 

What's scary for me is that I have two boys to raise and I know that I cannot control their every movement or decision—but I can pray that they will make different decisions so they'll never be in a situation like this.