After reading this comment to this post, I feel like I’ve got to say something:
The driver of the car was my daughter.
I think it is sad that the focus of most reporting has been on what I have been told was un-opened alcohol in the car. (Certainly it was not my impression that anyone investigating this matter was pulling any punches with me.)
No one seems to be interested in discussing the fatally bad intersection called “the mixing bowl” where automobile traffic mixed with tractor trailers regularly moves at 75+ MPH through a dozen or more lanes including left hand exits and bridges.
My daughter was an experienced young driver, who had commuted over thirty miles each way to and from school in high school daily as well as regularly between Northern Virginia and New Hampshire since entering GMU in 2005. She had over 80,000 miles on her car and it was well maintained and just been inspected and overhauled at Volkswagen.
I understand that this is tragic for hundreds of people and I don’t mind if it is used as a parable to scare other teenagers from drinking and driving but it should be based in fact. I think there is a real parable of the dangers of this intersection and driving on the beltway that is being totally ignored, I think because it would be an inconvienient reality for life on the beltway.
It is to easy in our busy lives to not appreciate those around us and forget that this moment or day may be our last with them.
There are no words that can describe this loss for the families invovled.
Carpe Diem
In almost two years of writing, this is probably the first time I regret posting something.
He’s right. We don’t know if alcohol was a factor. And the mixing bowl is a traffic engineer’s nightmare.
This is a tragedy for everyone. The families of the victims and their friends. The driver of the tractor trailer. I was wrong to jump to conclusions.
[...] # 2: I have further thoughts in response to a comment to this post here. [...]