Carload of teens crossed center line, hit St. Mary's transit
bus head-on, 1 dead, 3 injured
By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY
 LOVEVILLE --- Another in a long line of tragic crashes involving teens on their way to or from school took place on Friday morning when four Chopticon students in a vehicle crossed the center line of Rt. 5 near the State Highway garage and hit an on-coming transit bus on the driver’s side, killing one student and sending two others flying away in State Police Med-Evac helicopters to trauma units to fight for their lives. The fourth person in the car, also a girl riding in the rear of the car, was only slightly injured and was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital for treatment. 

The bus driver and two adult passengers were taken to St. Mary’s Hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
 According to St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Cpl. Mark Clark, the passenger killed was Tiakeshia R. Thompson of Mechanicsville.  

The driver of the 1999 Ford Crown Victoria which hit the bus was a 17-year-old boy. 

The teens all came from the Thompson's Corner area of St. Mary's County, according to St. Mary's Sheriff David Zylak.
Zylak said the names of all of those in the teen’s vehicle would be released after all families have been notified of the crash.
 Maryland State Police Lt. Brian Cedar, commander of the Leonardtown Barracks reports that his agency assisted St. Mary’s Sheriff’s investigators with the crash investigation as to the county-owned bus.
 Sheriff Zylak said that this latest teen driving tragedy shows the danger when children are given adult responsibilities.
 Sen. Roy Dyson (D. St. Mary's, Calvert, Charles) worked for the past 8 years pushing through a reluctant General Assembly a bill to restrict driving privileges for newly licensed teen drivers.
 "It takes the parents to follow through and make their children understand the life and death decisions that drivers make, giving full time and attention to their time behind the wheel," said Sheriff Zylak.
 Del. Anthony O'Donnell (R. Lusby) voted against the teen driving bill even though a Patuxent High School student who was drag racing on the way home from school took 4 lives, just a block from O'Donnell's home. O'Donnell's sole objection to the bill appeared to be simply political in that Dyson sponsored the bill.
 Teen drivers at every local high school, the parking lots of which are loaded with parent-supplied cars and trucks, have crashed and killed themselves and their friends at alarming rates with the instance of teen fatalities soaring depending on the number of kids in the vehicle. 

The fatality rate drops significantly with the number of passengers in teen-operated vehicles.
The Dyson teen driving bill passed last year restricts the number of teenagers a new driver can have as passengers, with the original legislation specifying a full year but the final bill dropping the time frame to less than a year. 
 Sen. Dyson said on Friday that he was simply stunned and disappointed at this latest highway tragedy.
 "We all feel badly for the families and hope that parents will talk to their children about focusing on their driving," said Sen. Dyson.