Parents must apply the brakes

He was his fishing buddy. A goofy, loving kid who always made the bigger catch, right beside the grandfather who taught him how.

Now Dennis Damon, 61, can hardly put his boat in the water, so haunted is he by the memory of a boy gone, and a law that failed to save him.

Jason Damon, 16, was a sophomore at Kennewick High School when, on May 28, he got into a Chevy Camaro with friends Daniel Griffith, 17, and Thomas George, 16, who was driving.

Late that night, the car struck a utility pole, then a tree, and split in half. Daniel flew through the rear window and crashed through the wall of a nearby house. Jason was found tangled in his seat belt.

They shared a funeral.

Thomas was thrown from the car and spent six days in the hospital. In July, he was charged with vehicular manslaughter; police said he was driving at "excessive speed."

It's a familiar story. Days before, Jemae Kolodziejczyk-Uruo, 16, a sophomore at Edmonds-Woodway High School, was killed while riding in a car with a 16-year-old driver.

And last month, Brian James Hill, 16, was driving on "roller-coaster hill" near Issaquah when he lost control of his 2000 Jetta, which hit a tree and burst into flames.

Hill and 17-year-old John Kelly were killed; a 14-year-old passenger was hospitalized.

"We're going to be looking into how we can slow people down out there," King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said then.

Dennis Damon thinks he knows how: Toughen the state's Intermediate Driver License law by holding the parents of teen drivers more accountable.

"The kids are the only ones prosecuted," Damon said. "And they are usually the only ones killed."

The 2001 law licenses drivers under 18 on a graduated system. For the first six months, they cannot drive with passengers younger than 20 who are not relatives.

Crash after crash is proving that the law isn't being honored; and police can't do anything, since they can't stop a car on suspicion of a legal driver's age. So it is up to the parents to make sure their kids aren't taking friends along on what could be a fatal ride.

Teenagers make up 7 percent of drivers but accounted for 14 percent of fatal car crashes and 20 percent of vehicle accidents last year, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Damon, of Idaho, has met with state Rep. Shirley Hankins, R-Richland, to push changes in the law.

"There's something wrong, something that is not being enforced," Hankins said.

She would like to require parents to accompany teens to their driver's test, and then co-sign for their license. Then both should attend an orientation on the law.

"We need to tell them, 'If you don't follow these rules, you will be relieved of your license,' " Hankins said. "Parents have to adhere to the law, too."

That, or be ready to wear black.

Reach Nicole Brodeur at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She had her share of near-misses.