Shane Fisher knelt and grabbed a handful of dirt and glass on the side of Highpoint Road.
"This is my friend," he said as he let the contents of his hand drop back to a bare spot beside the road. "This glass was his car."
Were it a normal Thursday, Fisher would have been in class at Brookwood High School along with his friend, Daniel Peek. But it wasn't. Fisher had come to pray at the spot on Highpoint Road outside Snellville where Peek's SUV crashed May 5. Police say Peek wasn't wearing a seat belt and that alcohol and speed may have been contributing factors. Peek died from his injuries Wednesday night.
"How many more are going to have to die?" Fisher asked. "Teens think they can handle these things, but they can't. We're just kids."
Last week, the sadly familiar storyline of a young life cut short played out at Brookwood: a crash, tearful prayer vigils, grief. In this case, the impact was expanded and intensified because Peek was the high-profile quarterback of the school's football team. His funeral is Monday.
The 17-year-old's death also raises the sadly familiar question: What propels kids to take risks behind the wheel despite an abundance of messages and programs designed to prevent them from doing so?
Like many other American suburban communities, Brookwood has been here before. In 1990, the Gwinnett County Teen Traffic Tragedy Task Force was formed in response to a series of accidents over the previous three years in which at least 10 Brookwood students had died.
The task force disbanded in the mid-1990s, but its work led to a 1994 CDC study titled "Risky Driving Behaviors Among Teenagers — Gwinnett County, Georgia, 1993." The study found that more than half the teens surveyed admitted to dangerous driving habits. About 63 percent reported they had tailgated, 80 percent reported driving more than 20 miles an hour above the speed limit and 91 percent reported entering an intersection as the stoplight turned red.
Teen drivers in the study said taking such risks "makes driving more fun." Of the approximately 3,000 crashes that occurred in Gwinnett in 1993, the study reported, more than one in four involved at least one teen driver.
"Younger teens have heard the messages about using seat belts and drinking and driving, but the same message hasn't come across on speeding," said Robert Dallas, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety and the vice chair of the state Drivers Education Commission.
Although Georgia has yet to put a statewide drivers education program in its public schools, 16-year-olds have to complete a drivers education program either online or through a driving school before they can receive a license. They also must prove they've driven a minimum of 40 hours with an adult as a part of their training. On top of that, the state's ninth-graders are required to participate in an Alcohol Drug Awareness Program as a part of their health courses to be eligible to later get a restricted driving license.
Yet those measures aren't panaceas, Dallas said. Last year, at least 100 teenaged drivers died in crashes. Curbing dangerous behavior behind the wheel means addressing teen attitudes toward risk, Dallas said.
And risky behavior is reinforced by much in teen culture. In the '60s, "Teen Angel" and "Leader of the Pack" memorialized highway deaths. In the 2000s, teens see ads touting fast cars, and video games that glorify speed and risk-taking. "At that age, there is no death," said Dunwoody-based psychologist William Doverspike, a former president of the Georgia Psychological Association. "They believe, 'It won't happen to me.'?"
Dr. Gregory Berns, a psychology professor at Emory University, has been conducting a study on risky decision-making among teens between the ages of 12 and 17. His research shows so far that kids literally can't help taking risks — the area of their brains governing risk inhibition and planning for the future isn't fully developed until about age 25, he said. And the system of the brain that stimulates impulsive behavior is most active during the adolescent years.
"Their brains just aren't fully wired, and it's unreasonable to expect mature behavior in a young brain," Berns said.
Because evaluating risk involves experience, kids who are new drivers are particularly vulnerable to making a bad decision behind the wheel, he said.
"The way you reach a conclusion is usually through experience, so you'd had to have had a few near misses in order to make good judgments," Berns said. "Unfortunately, with teens and alcohol and cars, there's often not a second chance."
Peek's death should serve as a reminder that programs and lessons teaching teens to think about the risks associated with driving need to be repeated over and over again, said Christi Kay, who served as coordinator of the Teen Tragedy Task Force.
"The kids change from year to year, so there needs to be a constant effort. These kids are so inexperienced," said Kay, now executive director of the Atlanta-based HealthMPowers, an agency that promotes health-enhancing behaviors among young people. Even when schools and parents are doing their best to prevent these accidents, she added, "some kids don't listen."
"I wish there was a silver bullet to stop these things, but there isn't," Kay said.