Saturday Talk: Readers Respond
Ed Siragusa, Fred J. Hohenberger

Saturday, September 30, 2000

LETTERS OF THE WEEK: TEEN DRIVERS:

Writers ignorant about recent deaths

In response to several recent articles and reader comments regarding teen driving, I find it remarkable how we all seem to have become experts on the passage of teens into their driving years, and how the irresponsibility of parents and teen drivers are the primary factors in the surge of teen fatalities.

Two Medlock Bridge Road accidents have taken the lives of eight beautiful young men and women already. There were no indications of irresponsible driving or speeding according to the police, nor of high-performance automobiles, yet the callous statements of some readers and journalists seem to indicate otherwise. I know from personal experience that one of the drivers was well-trained and in a safe automobile. How many more children must we sacrifice before the admission that this road is unsafe for drivers of any age?

Rain and standing water played a role in both of the tragic accidents. The lack of a barrier/guardrail on the median of this "highway" in which cars typically move at 60-plus mph is a travesty.

Such a simple and time-tested safety item, which would have spared the lives of these teens and prevented other accidents, must have been somehow overlooked by the civil engineers who redesigned the Medlock Bridge thoroughfare about eight years ago. Even the DOT must know something since it has just begun repairs to stop the pooling of water at the site of one of the fatal crashes.

Perhaps if 20 accidents per month (January-August 2000) is not enough to alert the experts, we should wait for a few more fatalities to correct the problem.

I've paid a high price to learn the answer. Are you ready to be next?

Ed Siragusa, of Alpharetta, is the father of Tommy Siragusa, who was killed June 29 on Medlock Bridge Road.

Road divider could save lives

As the grandfather of Tommy Siragusa, I feel it is my duty to respond to Tommy's and his three friends' deaths. Many people have written the newspaper and observed elsewhere that Tommy crashed because he was too young to drive.

Tommy never had the experience of hydroplaning, and I doubt that many reading this letter have. I had it happen twice, and I can tell you that you lose complete control. I was lucky that no one was near me and that I didn't cross the median.

Many four-lane highways have dividers in those areas where vehicles are prone to cross the median to prevent head-on accidents. Where were the DOT engineers on this one?

Only two months later, and about five miles south of where Tommy and his three friends were killed, four more teenagers were killed because of the same circumstances. Would they be dead today if there had been a divider between the four lanes? These eight teenagers will never be with us again. I could almost say that what happened to them was criminal.

As my father used to say to me, "Too soon old, too late smart." Let's wake up and see the signs before it is too late.