PADDD, Inc. - March 16, 2005 Baltimore Sun Article

A Grim Picture of Reckless Driving

Accidents: Jarring program aims to scare offenders straight.

Sun Staff

Laura Cadiz

Theresa Geier Costley got the call every parent fears most.

A friend was driving her 15-year-old son home from work. Going 73 mph in a 35-mph zone on Harpers Farm Road in the Hobbit's Glen residential community, the car struck a tree on the passenger side, where Costley's son, Terence, was sitting. Costley arrived at the scene and saw the yellow tarp covering the car. She knew her son was inside. She knew he was dead. It was May 18, 1996.

Costley told her story Monday night to a court-ordered crowd attending the PADDD program (Positive Alternatives to Dangerous and Destructive Decisions) to learn about the dangers of speeding and other reckless driving.

"If you continue to drive like this, somebody will die," Costley, of Jessup, told the crowd in a Howard District Court courtroom.

The 136 program participants throughout three courtrooms were subjected to the gruesome reality of car crashes for three hours. Crash victims spoke of the permanent injuries they endure. Surviving family members described their losses. Police and emergency medical workers told of the graphic scenes they encounter.

"Our statistics show that someone in one of these three courtrooms we will see [at Maryland Shock Trauma Center] this year," said Pat Wilson, a shock trauma nurse. "Don't let it be you."

PADDD has been taught in Howard County since April 2003, with a total 2,270 referrals. It has recently expanded to Carroll County and may be offered soon in Frederick County.

Shock trauma nurses Laurel Stiff and Debbie Yohn started the program in 1997, tired of perpetually seeing the injuries from speeding and reckless driving that came through the trauma center. They began offering the program in St. Mary's County for about two years, then took a break after Yohn had her son.

They later turned their efforts to Harford County with a program aimed at drunken drivers and then expanded to Howard County to focus on speeders. The program is funded through a $50,000 state highway grant, and participants pay $80.
Glimpsing the horror

Yohn said she wants people to know how their driving can dramatically affect their lives. She wants them to see glimpses of what she sees at the trauma center. That, she thinks, would make them change their driving habits.

"It takes a second ... and your life can dramatically change," she said. "The littlest thing, like a seat belt, can mean life or death."

According to the State Highway Administration, there were 19,261 speed-related crashes in the state in 2003. Twenty percent involved drivers between ages 15 to 19. In all speed-related crashes, 156 people were killed.

In Howard County, there have been three fatal crashes this year.

Some PADDD participants receive a probation before judgment and no points on their license if they attend the program, said Neil Dorsey, director of the Howard County sheriff's office community service section, which administers the program. They are on unsupervised probation for one to three years, with the sheriff's office checking their driving record annually for moving violations.

In the past year, about 10 percent who attended the program received another moving violation during their probation, Dorsey said.

The average participant is a 27-year-old white male, Dorsey said. But he pointed out that people ages 16 to 76 have attended the program. The majority of the offenders are speeders, though there are also aggressive and negligent drivers or those who were charged with driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence, he said.

Jason College, 26, of Lanham attended PADDD because he didn't want to receive any points on his license after driving 86 mph on Interstate 95 in Howard County.

After listening to the speakers' stories, he said he doesn't anticipate speeding again.

"It really opens your eyes to a lot of things," he said. "It makes you think about things you haven't thought about before."

During the intense program, the videos and subject matter are sometimes so gruesome, so real, that participants leave the room, feeling faint. Nurses keep water and chocolates close by just in case.

Theresa Snyder, a Baltimore County emergency medical technician, told the class to imagine the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard and multiply that by 10. That sound doesn't even come close to the wails heard when an organ donation team approaches a crash victim's family at shock trauma, she said.

"Those screams can shake the structure of that building," Snyder said.

Brian Boes, 32, of Catonsville spoke about how he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident while he was walking out of a Baltimore club in 1996. He was in a coma for a month. It took him three years to learn to walk again. He has permanent ringing in one of his ears.
A father's lamentation

A father in a videotaped interview stood at his dying son's bedside, lamenting his unfathomable loss after the son and his friends crashed a car. A woman, also in a videotaped interview, spoke about how her husband, son, daughter and daughter's friend were killed in a car accident.

Costley knows how those family members feel. She wants high school students to have to sit through the PADDD program before they're allowed to drive to school.

After she told the class about her son's death, Costley asked them to remember to tell their family they love them every day. She told them about the trauma of having to choose a casket to bury her son.

"That was prom time," she said. "I should've been picking out a tux for my son."

After Costley spoke, a young woman walked up to her during a break and told her she had just called her mom and told her she loved her. 1. Howard County offenders ordered to complete the PADDD program (Positive Alternatives to Dangerous and Destructive Decisions) as part of their sentence watch a video titled "America's Deadliest Weapon."
2. Judy Kressig, who was severely injured in a drinking-and-driving accident, tells her story to people taking a class for reckless drivers.

1. - 2. ELIZABETH MALBY : SUN STAFF