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A June crash killed two Riverbend students. Eight teens have died in automobile accidents in the region in 2007, the most since 2002, according to newspaper accounts.
Angel Johnson (left), 17, managed to keep calm when the car she was driving was involved in a crash on Old Plank Road on Dec. 7. Johnson and her sister Marissa (right), 16, who was a passenger, both suffered minimal injuries. |
BY ELLEN BILTZ
When 17-year-old Angel Johnson left her house Dec. 7, she noticed the roads were unexpectedly slippery as the fallen rain quickly turned to ice.
So she took it slow back to her home in the Chancellor area after dropping her little brother off at elementary school.
The teenager hadn't been driving long, but she was being as cautious as possible for the sake of herself and her 16-year-old sister--whom she made sit in the back seat just in case.
But as she traveled back to her Spotsylvania County home, a truck slid into the back of her car, pushing it head-on into oncoming traffic.
The blur of the cars as she slid across the icy road didn't keep her from remembering the advice she had received from her mother and Judge Joseph Ellis: Don't slam on your brakes, veer away from other cars, stay as calm as possible, the impact will be twice your speed.
As she slid into the ditch, a telephone pole fell onto the car's roof, cracking it in half.
Johnson couldn't feel her legs, and her epileptic sister was having a seizure in the back seat.
Johnson said she immediately turned to her sister and saw her bleeding.
"I thought I had killed her, and I was flipping out," she said.
Both teens ended up with fairly minor injuries, none permanent, their mom said. They were in one of the more than 80 accidents in the Fredericksburg area that day, most caused by the icy roads.
"Thank God they were wearing their seat belts," said their mother, Kimberley Jelinek.
It was one more thing they had done right.
And Jelinek attributes their safety to the precautions her daughter took.
"You hear so many negative things, especially about teen drivers. It's nice to finally have a story where it ended well," she said.
Judge Ellis, who presides over the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in Spotsylvania, said he worries about teen drivers. That's why he spends so much time talking to them before he hands over the small piece of plastic that can change the life of a 16-year-old, sometimes for the worse.
"I get really tired of seeing these kids die for no reason," Ellis said. "Most often when they die, it's because they didn't know something."
When a new driver comes to get a license, Ellis gives an hour-and-a-half presentation, which he said is uncommon among Virginia judges.
"There are maybe only another two dozen [judges] in the state" who do a similar program, he said.
He hopes to better inform teens by showing videos and giving stunning statistics.
Ellis said he knows how important it is to spend time with new drivers, and that most of them should take advanced driving classes to counter their lack of experience on the road.
Eight local teens have died in area crashes this year, the most since 2002, when a dozen were killed, according to newspaper accounts.
"If the statistics are correct, crash rates drop after five years," he said. "Which means for the next five years, they are only a percentage trained."
Angel Johnson took Ellis' words of caution to heart.
"I was mentally prepared for it," Johnson said of the accident. "I knew what to expect, second by second."
Ellen Biltz: 540/374-5424
