This past week, when 18-year-old Aaron
Deveau of Haverhill, MA, was convicted of violating a recent law that
bans drivers from texting, he made history. He also broke a lot of
hearts on both sides of the case—especially among those of us
holding our breaths every time one of our teens gets behind the wheel
of a car.
Deveau, who'd had his license just six
months and was only seventeen at the time of the accident, swerved
across the yellow center line on the road and crashed into an
oncoming car driven by father and grandfather Donald Bowley, age 55.
Bowley died and left behind a grief-stricken family. Deveau, who was
also found guilty of motor vehicle homicide, is serving a year in
prison, doing community service, and having his license revoked until
he is 33 years old.
Not punishment enough, say many, to
pay for the life Deveau took. But let's not judge him too harshly.
This kid could belong to any one of us.
To me, in fact. I have four children
old enough to drive, and every one of them has gotten into an
accident of some sort, ranging from scraping up the side of the car
while backing down the driveway to driving into a ditch while trying
to switch stations on the radio.
Nor am I immune from carelessness
behind the wheel. At age 22, I was driving too fast when my car
slid on black ice. I ended up doing a 360-degree turn into oncoming
traffic. I was just lucky that there wasn't any traffic coming at
precisely that moment. At age 28, I bought my first brand new car;
two weeks later, I drove around a city block too fast and sideswiped
a parked car. I was just lucky that nobody was inside that car, or
getting out of it at that exact moment in time.
And, just a few years ago, a cop
pulled me over for swerving over the yellow center line because he
thought I'd had too much to drink. I hadn't been drinking at all. I
was just trying to reach down and push the lid onto my travel cup so
the hot tea wouldn't slosh around. I was just lucky that nobody was
coming from the opposite direction during those two seconds I took my
eyes off the road.
I was just lucky all of those times.
I was also stupid, stupid, stupid.
We are all stupid sometimes. Mostly,
thankfully, we are also lucky. Think about how many times a day
you—and your children—climb into the driver's seat of one of
those sweet death machines, crank up the tunes, and zoom off to
dinner or a movie or the grocery store. We talk on the phone, put on
lipstick, sip hot coffee, and eat while we drive. We also make
optimistic assumptions about the other drivers: Oh, that guy
won't go through the red light. No, that jeep isn't going to pull
out in front of me. That woman wouldn't dare turn left in front of
me at this intersection, no way!
We are just lucky enough, until that
one sad moment when we are not.
I grieve for Donald Bowley's family, I
do. They lost a man they loved. But my heart breaks for Aaron
Deveau and his family as well. This boy, so proud of his new license
and working hard as a dishwasher while still in high school, was as
stupid and unlucky as you can be. We must find it in our hearts to
forgive him—and to remind ourselves that it could have been any one
of us, or one of our children, behind that steering wheel.
We must remember that we are lucky
until that one bleak moment when we are not.
