Tragedy brings warnings on danger of teen drivers

WOBURN -- Part of parenting a teenager is learning to let go, so when 14-year-old Jessica Connolly, asked her stepfather if she could ride to work with her 16-year-old boyfriend Monday morning, he said yes.

It was only after she died during an ill-advised attempt to pass on a two-lane Woburn road that stepfather Albert Stanley learned that her boyfriend had broken the law. As the holder of a Junior Operator License, which he received just two days before the accident, Matthew Faria was prohibited by law from giving rides to passengers under 18 unless he was accompanied by a licensed adult driver.

''I didn't know he wasn't supposed to have anybody in the car except for himself," said Stanley, a 58-year-old retired police officer. ''If I knew that, she never would have went.

''Being a trusting father, I didn't want her to go. But she wanted me to trust her, and I trusted him, too," he said, sipping coffee in the kitchen of the Burlington home he shares with Jessica's mother, Donna Stanley. ''I thought he wouldn't do anything stupid. But he did, and he got my daughter killed. It's just hard. She said, 'Dad, I'm so proud that you trust me and you let me go with my friends.' If I said no yesterday, she would still be alive."

Responding to the tragedy, both Kimberly Hinden, the state registrar of motor vehicles, and Woburn Police Chief Philip L. Mahoney said yesterday that parents need to be made aware of the 1998 law that placed restrictions on drivers between the ages of 16 1/2 and 18. Hinden and Mahoney also said that something must be done, such as possibly imposing tougher penalties, to persuade teenagers to take the restrictions more seriously.

Mahoney said Connolly died about 1 p.m. Monday when Faria attempted to pass a car driven by a friend -- who was also driving illegally, on a learner's permit -- on Willow Street in Woburn. After blindly crossing a solid double-yellow line at the base of a hill, he tried to swerve back into his own lane to avoid an oncoming sports utility vehicle, but struck his friend's car and spun sideways into the opposite lane, where the SUV hit the passenger side of the Saturn SL1. The pregnant driver of the SUV, Paula Leydon, was treated for injuries.

''I can't tell you what he was thinking," Mahoney said. ''My best guess is that [the attempt to pass] was just a whim. It was just inexperience."

Faria, who was in a coma in Massachusetts General Hospital suffering from multiple internal injuries, had not been cited by yesterday, but Mahoney said the 16-year-old female driver of the first car had been cited for driving on a learner's permit without an adult in the car and that her 16-year-old male passenger, who had a junior operator license, was cited for letting her drive.

Hinden said that Registry officials, worried about the rate of accidents among teenage drivers, have tried to raise awareness among parents about the restrictions placed on teens. Over the last several years, according to Registry records, more than 30 percent of the state's 16-year-old drivers had been involved in serious crashes. In 2004, Registry figures show, 48 drivers age 18 or younger were killed in car accidents.

Faria's mother, Hinden said, was scheduled to receive a letter from the Registry this week reminding her and her son of the rules under which he could legally drive.

Mahoney and other officials, however, said it was clear that Faria already either knew or should have known that he was not allowed to have Connolly in his car without a licensed adult along.

Registry officials said a warning about the passenger restrictions was on the back of his junior operator's license, as well as on the learner's permit he had held for the prior six months. An employee for Tri-Town Driver Education, the private driving school in Woburn where Faria learned to drive, said the restrictions were also contained in the Registry's driver's manual, which the teenager was given after he enrolled.

''Kids that age are absolutely aware of what the restrictions are," Mahoney said.

Both Mahoney and Hinden said they support proposals currently before the Legislature that would enhance the penalties for violations of junior operator restrictions, tighten rules for late-night driving between midnight and 5 a.m. with an adult, and extend the junior license period from six months to a year.

Attempts to reach relatives of Faria were unsuccessful yesterday. But his teenage friends said that their peers all know about the restrictions and penalties, but routinely ignore them.

''Everybody knows -- it's just that, obviously, you want to drive your friends around," said a tearful 15-year-old Holly McNamara, who was standing next to a makeshift memorial that Connolly's friends had set up near the Burlington High School track.

Connolly and Faria both worked at a restaurant in the same nursing home. Connolly, who was just weeks shy of her 15th birthday, was an award-winning Spanish student, and just a few days earlier she had put a down payment on a trip to Spain. The pair had just attended her semiformal dance together, and Faria had recently surprised her with concert tickets to see her favorite star, Eminem, in August, friends said. Faria was ecstatic about the independence his driver's license represented, family friends said.

''Matt was like a little kid in a candy store," said Terri Clement, 42, of Burlington, whose daughter was a close friend of Connolly's. ''He was so excited. It was a freedom. He was so, so excited."