Johnston leader organizing forum on teen drivers

A Johnston County Commissioner is spearheading an effort to figure out how to stop the county's youngest drivers from dying in car wrecks.

Commissioner Tony Braswell lives near the spot where a Princeton High School student and a recent graduate lost their lives in a car wreck on the county's rural roads. In the past 18 months, four Princeton High School students and one recent graduate have been killed in car crashes. Most weren't wearing seat belts, and most were speeding.

"We want to determine why there are so many fatalities in Johnston County and see if there is anything we can do, like do we need more eduction or driving classes to save lives," Braswell said.

Over the next few weeks, Braswell will gather together various state and county agencies, including Highway Patrol, the N.C. Department of Transportation and Johnston County Schools, to meet and look at the problem. He wants the group to decide what's causing these deaths, Braswell said, and he hopes to come up with some solutions.

Braswell said they plan to look at all the issues, including speed limits and the condition of rural roads.

Johnston has been one of North Carolina's deadliest counties for teen drivers and their passengers in recent years.

Johnston crashes -- most on narrow, rural roads -- killed six people 19 or younger in 2006, 14 in 2007 and five so far in 2008, said Highway Patrol Capt. Everett Clendenin.

Teens crash rates are much higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Johnston and other rural counties have narrow secondary roads that have higher speed limits and worse lighting than urban roads and make them more dangerous for inexperienced drivers, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center.

Clendenin said he welcomes the commissioner's forum to help solve the problem of teen fatalities.

"All the time we talk about that we can't do this alone," he said. "Enforcement alone is not going to make a difference."

What will, he said, are parents driving with their teenagers and correcting bad habits, and schools need to stress good driving, too.

Next week, Highway Patrol officers begin their "Drive to Live" campaign, an initiative to encourage teens to drive safely. Officers will head to school grounds to talk to teenage drivers about slowing down and clicking their seat belts, Clendenin said.

Speed is still the leading cause of teenage death in the state, he said.

"Teens are more likely to die in a car crash due to speeding than from anything else," he said.

Staff writers Bruce Siceloff, Kinea White Epps and Jane Ruffin contributed to this report.