Letter to a friend News article

Queensland Parliamentary Library

Newspaper article from
Courier Mail
Tuesday 23 August 2005

Page 005
Downloaded from Newstext 

Road speed, inexperience blamed for deaths of four teens 

TOUGH new laws to cut road deaths among young drivers were announced yesterday as Townsville reeled from a horrific crash that took the lives of four teenagers. 

Dwayne Morrison, 17, had held his licence for five days before he and three friends were killed in his vehicle. 

Police said yesterday speed and inexperience contributed to the accident on Saturday night. 

Dwayne, his girlfriend Kahly Anne Thompson, 16, and her best friend Kaitlyn Lee Wright, 15, were killed instantly when the car slammed into a tree off Cape Pallarenda Drive about 10.20pm. 

Dwayne's best friend, apprentice boilermaker Shane Daniel Cronin, 17, died despite desperate efforts by emergency service workers to save him. No one in the car survived. 

Yesterday police ruled out rumours that a second car may have been involved in the crash. 

Townsville officer-in-charge, Acting Inspector Dale Last, said he had interviewed five youths travelling in the car behind Dwayne's and excessive speed and driver inexperience were strong factors in the crash. 

"The length of the skidmarks and the extent of the damage to the vehicle leaves no doubt in my mind that speed was involved," Insp Last said. 

Dwayne's sister Aleria, 19, said her mother had often spoken to Dwayne about the dangers of speeding. 

She said Dwayne and Kahly, who was in the front passenger seat, had been inseparable since they started going out at high school. 

"Her parents and my parents have come together and the funeral is going to be together," she said. "They are going to be buried beside each other." 

At the Cronin family residence yesterday, Martin Cronin said he was finding it hard to come to grips with losing his son, who was his "good friend and good mate". 

Mr Cronin said his effervescent son had only just found himself an apprenticeship and was just starting to become "his own person" in life. 

Transport Minister Paul Lucas will today introduce legislation into State Parliament to apply tougher penalties for people involved in illegal street racing. 

They will face a six-month licence suspension that also applies to drivers caught travelling at more than 40km/h over the speed limit. 

Mr Lucas also said he would soon release a discussion paper examining options for reducing road deaths among the young. 

He said the paper would canvass all youth safety initiatives, including curfews, passenger limits and driver training. 

Queensland's road toll rose again last night when a Gold Coast man, 38, became the 12th person to die in 72 hours. 

Proserpine police Sergeant Stephen O'Connell said the man, a truck driver, had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel on the Bruce Highway between Proserpine and Bloomsbury, near Mackay, about 4.20am.