WLOX Editorial: A terrible loss - WLOX.com - The News for South Mississippi

WLOX Editorial: A terrible loss

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There are 240, 16 and 17 year olds who should be at home with their families. They should be having dinner, doing homework, watching TV, chatting on Facebook and any number of things that teens do. They should be, but they are not, because they are dead.

What a terrible loss. These young people had their lives in front of them. Who knows what any one of them may have invented or accomplished for humanity. We will never know.

Those 240 young people were novice drivers killed in the first half of 2012. And we were doing so well. The number of traffic deaths on our roads had been falling dramatically for 11 years, but now we see the number of deaths for novice 16 and 17 year old drivers across the country rising again.

Could cell phones be one of the reasons? Most of us love our phones and the instant communication it provides. But the distraction of these very cool devices has to wait. Wait until you are not driving.

That's our opinion, we would like to hear yours. Email your thoughts to editorials@wlox.com, or post your comments below.

Rick Williams
WLOX-TV General Manager

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