Enough Blame to Go Around

Hindsight is 20/20 in the aftermath of last week’s crash in which a Newport Harbor High School senior was killed and two others were critically injured.

Some answers to questions that have haunted this accident were delivered on Tuesday by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. It said that an extensive field sobriety test was given to the 18-year-old driver and that the carload of friends was allowed to leave the scene of a house party in Santa Ana Heights after authorities became satisfied that nobody in the car was intoxicated. Two hours later, the sport utility vehicle careened out of control on a curving stretch of Irvine Avenue.

The decision to allow the group to proceed after a single “half-empty beer” was discovered along with three unopened six-packs was a questionable call. It appears that citations could have been issued. But this story is not only about what authorities might have done. It also calls into question the judgment of parents in allowing this kind of situation to develop. Perhaps too many youngsters, with their parents along for the ride, are lulled into a false sense that all’s well if only there is a “designated driver” to shepherd the revelers.

The promise of young lives on an enticing late-spring evening may not always be tempered by an appropriate sense of vulnerability. What might go wrong is something that experience in living provides. This tragedy ought to prompt parents, teachers and law enforcement personnel everywhere to some sober reassessment with young people on safe driving and the law on underage drinking.