Jared Brown had driven the 4-mile route to his school so many times it was like breathing.
Yes, he’d only had his driver’s license since last June, but he steered his Honda Accord like an old man, steady and always with an eye out for the other guy because that’s how he lived his life.
“He was a very careful driver,” his father, Paul Brown, remembered. “I’m not just saying that because he was my son. I’d observed him many times.”
And so you imagine the 17-year-old with his 15-year-old brother, Jaison, seated next to him approaching the intersection of Ga. 316 and Harbins Road, slowing to look both ways and then turning left one final time toward Dacula High School.
It was 7 a.m. Oct. 30 and then just like that, they were gone, hit by an oncoming PT Cruiser.
The driver, a 44-year-old Bethlehem man, sustained non-life threatening injuries. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident.
Jared died shortly after the crash, and his little brother, Jaison, was pronounced dead later that evening.
Who can say they know what that’s like? It’s hard enough losing one child. Imagine losing two all at once.
On Monday, two days after his sons were laid to rest, Paul Brown still didn't know what to make of it. All he knew for sure was that he and his family were making it through the valley on the wings of prayer.
“It’s going to take awhile,” he said, his voice trailing. “It’s going to be a rough road.”
If nothing else, maybe now officials will finally do something to make that intersection safer. Maybe.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been struggling to make sense of this tragedy. Why Jared and Jaison? Good kids, by all accounts. Why now?
Sometimes, life just doesn’t make sense. It just is and we do our best to deal with it.
Getting a driver’s license is still considered a rite of passage for many teens, marking for them a new level of independence and signaling newfound freedom, a hallmark on the road to adulthood.
I remember my own daughters being giddy with excitement at their turn.
But I also remember being terrified every time they left home, feeling relief each time I heard them pull back into the driveway and the garage door went up and then down again.
Whew, they’d made it back.
I remember thinking how times had changed. When I was 16, schools were still offering driver’s ed, and so when I got behind the wheel for the first time, Coach Robinson sat beside me chewing tobacco and barking instructions.
I was terrified — even when I was the only one on a country road and there were a lot of them in Mississippi.
Kids in Atlanta are forced to learn to drive on crowded streets, surrounded by impatient and seemingly always angry and in-a-hurry drivers. It’s more than a little intimidating. It’s frightening.
They learn to speed to get out of the way. And sometimes, they learn bad habits from us. They take chances they shouldn’t.
Paul Brown said that there was something that made Jared think he had enough clearance to make the turn. Thing is, we’ll never know.
I wasn’t sure I had anything to add to the subject of teen drivers. Like the rest of us, they learn by doing.
Even with my daughters grown and gone, it’s frightening to think that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, but it’s true. Six teens ages 16-19 die every day from motor vehicle injuries. Per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16-19 are nearly three times more likely than drivers aged 20 and older to be in a fatal crash.
The main cause? Driver inexperience.
As I arrived home safe Friday night, I heard a WSB news story that said there was a history of crashes at Ga. 316 and Harbins where Jaison and Jared met their death. Then, in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story that ran in Monday's paper, I learned the intersection had long been a concern for area officials, parents and students.
A 2002 GDOT study of Ga. 316 revealed that Harbins Road was the deadliest part of the entire highway. Four fatal crashes had occurred there between 1995 and 2000; three deaths since 2012.
In 2012, state transportation officials tried to build a $23 million overpass to address safety concerns, but that proposal failed when metro Atlanta voters defeated a referendum that year.
Now an $18 million interchange is in the works for the intersection and is slated to be completed by 2024, according to the WSB story.
Paul Brown said he hopes his boys’ death will finally force officials to act.
“If one good thing can come from this, it would be that intersection be made safer,” he said.
Until then, he hopes the rest of us avoid that intersection altogether.
About the Author
