Father of Reid S. Hollister, age 17, a driver, who died in the early morning of December 2, 2006, the result of a one-car accident on the evening of December 1, at Exit 34 on Interstate 84 East in Plainville, Connecticut

Author:

• HIS FATHER STILL: A Parenting Memoir, a memoir about the obligations of a parent in the year following a teenage driver's sudden death; manuscript currently being reviewed by publishers. (My agent is Joy Tutela of the David Black Literary Agency, New York City, jtutela@dblackagency.com)
  
  
• "A Father's Awful Lesson in Risk," New London Day, March 2, 2008
  
  
• "A Safer Road to Driver's License," Hartford Courant, July 13, 2008
  
  
• "Teenage Drivers Require Close Supervision," Hartford Courant, December 8, 2009
  
  
• "Tips From Reid's Dad" – advice for parents, currently being distributed at several Connecticut driving schools

Member of Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell's Teen Driving Task Force, December 2007 to June 2008 (Final Report); Co-Chair of Legislation Subcommittee, contributor to drafting of Public Act 08-32 (Public Act 08-32)

Television:

• Connecticut Public Television, "Town Meeting: Teen Driving," April 15, 2008, hosted by Diane Smith
  
  
• "Inside Out," April 2009, West Hartford Community Television, hosted by John Bonee

Radio:

• Public Service Announcement on Connecticut's new teen driver laws, broadcast 600 times on Connecticut commercial stations, August – September, 2008
  
  
• Interview, WCBS Radio, New York, April 2008, by Fran Schaido

Coverage of this Blog:

• LIFE Publications of Glastonbury, Simsbury, Canton, Wethersfield, West Hartford, Manchester, South Windsor, and Rocky Hill Connecitcut, "Father launches safe teen driving blog after son dies in accident," by Lynn Woike, November - December 2009 and February 2010, www.ctlife.net
  
  
• Hartford Business Journal, November 2009
  
  
• Connecticut Law Tribune, October 2009

National Conference: "What I'm Feeling Like, Dad, Is To Borrow the Car Keys": My Experience as a Bereaved Parent Helping Rewrite Connecticut's GDL Laws," The Lifesavers Conference, March 30, 2009, Nashville, Tennessee (Lifesavers Conference)

Speaker:

• Stonington High School, Stonington, Connecticut, March 2008
  
  
• Conard High School Parent Organization, West Hartford, Connecticut, April 2008
  
  
• Glastonbury High School, September 2008
  
  
• Watertown High School, Watertown, Connecticut, May 2009, with State Senator Rob Kane
  
  
• Watkinson School, Hartford, Connecticut, January 2010

Liaison from Governor's Task Force to Chief Court Administrator on educating judges and prosecutors on Connecticut's new laws, 2008

Participant in Mourning Parents Act (!MPACT), which brings to high schools a message about the dangers of teen driving and the consequences for families of accidents and fatalities, 2009

Advisor: Connecticut Children's Medical Center, pending funding applications to Center for Disease Control, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on injury prevention research

Father of Martha Hollister, age 17: Learner's Permit holder; member, Department of Motor Vehicles Teen Advisory Group; !MPACT Speaker, Plainfield High School, Plainfield, Connecticut, May 20, 2009

On December 2, 2006, my seventeen-year-old son, Reid, the driver, died in a one-car accident. On a three-lane Interstate highway that he probably never had driven before, on a dark night just after rain had stopped, and apparently traveling above the speed limit, he went too far into a curve before turning, then overcorrected, and went into a spin. While the physics of the moment could have resulted in any number of trajectories, his car hit the point of a guardrail precisely at the middle of the driver's-side door, which crushed the left-side of his chest.

• Driving is the leading cause of death for children.
  
  
• There is no such thing as a safe teen driver. We can train teens to operate a vehicle, but we cannot overcome the facts that their brains do not yet fully appreciate risk and danger, and that driving continually requires judgment, which requires experience, which new drivers do not have.
  
  
• When teen drivers crash, they almost always injure or kill not only themselves, but also passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians.

Every summer, most high schools in the U.S. send forms to parents and guardians that ask for permission for various activities at school.  The forms usually include something like this:   _____        _____        I give permission for my child to drive to   Yes            No           and from school.   _____        _____        I give permission for my child to ride to   Yes            No           sc...