It was Sept. 30 when Lisa Scott, a mother of three, was watching the 10 o’clock news and saw the breaking news alert: A 16-year-old boy lost control of his speeding vehicle and struck a tree, killing himself and his two 15-year-old passengers. The driver had his license for a week. To make matters worse, it was the second teen car crash in the county in six months.

Scott, who couldn’t help but think of her oldest son, Drew, also a new driver, calls the news “terrifying,” adding, “You are sending your most precious cargo off in that vehicle.”

The teens in the September crash were from Pekin, a town of about 30,000 people and the county seat of Tazewell, which boasts upwards of 135,000 people on 650-square miles of mostly farmland in central Illinois. Although the kids weren’t from the Scott’s Tremont, Ill. village, a rural area with about 2,100 residents and a grain elevator as its tallest landmark; she says the kids were part of their broader community.

Jeff Lower agrees. “It doesn’t matter where you go, somebody knows some of these teens who were dying,” says the Pekin resident and chief deputy of the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Department. “My own kids went to high school with four of the kids.”

Scott told her son what happened, fully aware he—like most teens—thought he was invincible.

What no one knew, though, was that in the 15 months from March 2005 to July 2006, Tazewell County and the surrounding communities would mourn the loss of 15 teenagers who died in crashes caused by everything from speeding, alcohol and drugs to inexperience, fatigue and poor lighting.

A month later, in October, a motorcycle crash on a dark rural road killed two boys. Three months later, alcohol and excessive speeds contributed to the deaths of two Tremont teens.

This story is published in full at FordBetterWorld.org.