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Horrific Subaru Impreza accident 4 teens killed

45K views 177 replies 92 participants last post by  valfaw 
#1 · (Edited)
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/long_island&id=8839043

MALVERNE (WABC) -- The black Subaru was literally cut in half after slamming into a tree.

It happened around 3:30 Monday morning on the Southern State Parkway heading west in Malverne.

Friends of the victims came by the scene Monday afternoon.

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They identified the victims as four young men from Queens, all 18 years old.

"They were nice kids you know loved their families their friends, I just can't believe they're gone you know," said Kevin Perseud, a friend.

Police say the driver, 17-year-old Joseph Beer from Queens, missed a curve in the road around exit 17.

17-year-old Joseph Beer was behind the wheel and state police say he was driving with a Learner's Permit which means he should not have been on the road at that hour and should not have had his buddies in the back seat.

According to the DMV, in New York City and Long Island, anyone with a Learner's Permit must be accompanied by a licensed driver who's older than 21 and they cannot be on the road between 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

The car swerved across two lanes, flew into the shoulder and hit several trees.

"I heard a loud boom and felt my house shake," a neighbor said.

The four victims were ejected.

Neighbors who heard the bang rushed out to help but it was too late.

"They were all on the highway scattered. There were like three bodies scattered like five feet from each other," said Michael Campo, a neighbor.

"We actually found one young man wandering around the accident site. He didn't seem like he had a scratch on him. I don't know how he made it out of the car like that. He was a little disoriented and we asked him if he knew anyone else was in there and he said he thought so," said Pasquale Loungo, a neighbor.

Now friends of the victims have deal with the pain of it all.

They sorted through the debris all over the side of the road, taking away reminders of their friends.

"I just have chills running through my body, I can't believe it happened," Perseud said.

There are no words that will make the pain go away.

Just showing up and being supportive is the best way to console the victim's families.

That's what happened outside the Khan family house Monday night.

18-year-old Chris Khan was one of the four teens killed in this horrific crash.

"Right now, it's just devastating. Just devastating. They can't believe what happened," said Somdat Bhewan, victim's father.

Somdat Bhewan lost his youngest son, 18-year-old Chris Khan, and he's struggling with the numbness and heartache that come with losing a child.

"It didn't hit me just yet, but it's getting worse actually, yes," Bhewan said.

"That's foolish you know. I don't know why he would do such a thing like that," said Kevin Misripersued, the victim's friend said.

In this Guyanese community in Richmond Hill, Queens, anger, frustration and sadness is how friends of the victims are feeling.

They gave Eyewitness News photos of happier times. They are ones they will cherish as they mourn the four lives cut violently short.

"It's still hard to believe it. I can't get it through my head that it actually happened," said Travis Mahrana, victims' friend.

"All I have is memories. It's just so sad," said Aliesha Hossein, victims' friend.

"I hope it's an eye opener for these kids. It's not going to solve anything, but these kids sometimes when they look back in the wheel of the car, they've got friends, they get out of hand," said John Maharana, victims' friend.

The investigation into the crash is continuing.




I saw on the news tonight, I believe it's a 08-09' WRX STI based on the wheels and the grille badge.

 
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#5 ·
Yes- easily avoidable death involving young lives is always sad. :(

And I will just say what I have been thinking- newish WRX, 17 year old driver... 3:30 a.m. Monday morning with several buddies in the car? That just sounds like something bad is going to happen.

The extra weight of the passengers coupled with "how fast can it go" probably contributed to the fatal mistake.
 
#15 ·
You can blame a lot for this.
I blame lack of proper driver's training. The first time you lose traction shouldn't be on a public road with people in the back, and yet, with our nanny-ass fear of showing kids that cars might be fun to drive fast, we feed them DARE-esq FUD.
And once they break the rules and survive doing something their driver's training guy told them would kill them, they figure they can deal with anything.

Your kids ae gonna do stupid **** in cars. Might as well have them know what counter-steering is.
 
#27 ·
This is a tragic story - but I don't think driver training would necessarily fix the outcome.

I'm going off the extra ordinary assumption that speed played a factor as well as LACK OF SEAT BELTS for the passengers to be ejected from the vehicle upon impact. Plain stupidity to not wear the correct restraint is the culprit, in my opinion. No guarantee that any of the victims would have survived had they worn their restraints but that precaution takes precedence over advanced driver training. And you're right, at 17 with hormones and pressure to be risky especially in such a fast vehicle will inevitably have higher chance for an accident - but I think, regardless of driver training. In fact, I can (with more ease) see the argument that having the false sense of confidence or 'capability' to handle the car at such potentially high speeds would encourage the actions. Would it (advanced training) help? Sure but it wouldn't prevent the problem happening in the first place and I think it minimal impact on catastrophic consequences.

Sad to say but this is fodder for more electronic nannies, and possibly rightfully so - if it can prevent some deaths due to ignorance and/or negligence, it may very well be worth it.

:(
 
#16 ·
17 year old with a learner's permit and a WRX STi :facepalm:

Kid probably made in convincing argument with the parents on how safe AWD is :facepalm:

I've driven in that area many time when I was on college and yep there are white knuckled sections on the Southern State PKWY.

At the end of the day, there's always going to be stories like this. I was in a similar situation when I was in college. I was in a brand new BMW E30 (goes to show how old I am :laugh: ) 325i coupe owned by some rich foreign student. The car had one too many passenger with no one wearing seatbelts in the back. And on top of that, she was goin' at a pretty good clip on the Northern State PKWY. I remember how much we were all laughing b/c she was driving so fast on the twisty stretch of highway.

I guess at the time it was funny but now that I think about it, I guess we were lucky to make it back to our dorms.
 
#17 ·
All torn up!


There was a wreck like that up here quite a few years ago.

Car involved in that one?

2006 Subaru WRX STi.
 
#22 ·
"We actually found one young man wandering around the accident site. He didn't seem like he had a scratch on him"

Ok so who was this kid that was relatively unscathed? Because it is usually the driver who walks away from an accident while the passengers die. :confused:
 
#24 ·
Yes, it was the driver.

Yeah - five people in that car surely will affect the driving dynamics - especially dangerous at high speed on a road like that one (I've been on it many times, I have relatives just a few miles from the accident).
 
#25 ·
I see a whole stack of stupid leading up to this...but I normally try to cut kids a bit of slack. Tough though when you drive stupid, and don't buckle your seat belts...and don't have a proper license...AND have been given a car beyond your skill level.

There was no way that was going to end well.
 
#35 ·
Hell yes. I don't know what parents are thinking, many of my son's HS classamtes have Camaros, Mustangs, 370Zs, GTIs, WRXs, 3 series, etc and one just got a new Golf R. One of them totalled a new Camaro and then showed up with another new one a few weeks later. Sure, teenagers can get in trouble in any car, but getting them a high performance car is tempting fate.
 
#34 ·
And what's your 17 year old kid doing out at 3AM?? A little parental structure goes a long way, you know. I don't know about you all, but I had a pretty strict curfew and was expected to abide by it... which I did or else my dad would have my hide. It was just engrained in me.

Sad story, especially for the families. But it'll keep happening. Stupid parents will keep buying their kids cars they can't handle and certain kids are always going to push the limits.

It's another case of some spoiled brat bringing his buddies down with him.
 
#37 ·
Peer pressure and knowledge of ways to get out of your house do a lot. I had friends back in high school who purposefully parked a certain way so they could sneak out of their house and roll their car down or up the street depending on if they were coming or going, all without the their parents knowing. Most of the time this occurred because their parents were so strict in the first place.

Sucks for sure for everyone involved.
 
#36 ·
Learner's permit without adult supervision?

Driving in the middle of the night early morning?

Inexperienced?

Check, check, check. Bad combinations with bad results waiting to happen

The driver is still alive and rest of passengers are killed, what else is new :banghead:
 
#39 ·
Very sad.

When I think back to all the stupid risks I took with cars and motorcycles 20 years ago when I was 17 I just shake my head in amazement that I never got in to an accident.

It's strange when you're 17 the stuff you'll do that later in you're 30's and 40's you'll say, "What the hell was I thinking?"

I don't know if it's a feeling of invincibility or just not weighing the consequences, but it's a strange age for sure and we've all gone through it.
 
#40 ·
FV-QR

i drove past this accident when they were investigating and a few hours later when they cleaned everything up. the images I have will be forever burned in my mind. I saw chunks of flesh and blood splattered on the road. The debris field is well over 200 feet. the first picture is to get a sense of where the debris landed (some was actually behind me about 20 feet b/c i didn't bother to get my phone out) the turn is west bound and their is a sloping incline with a hidden apex, on my way back i saw he was going too fast over the apex, looks like his wheels locked up (a single skid mark going straight) he must have gone airborne b/c the skid disappeared and then there was the trees that were toppled over (about 4-6" diameter trees not giant ones) maybe 2-3 that were broken with bark removed. the body that i saw was a good 60 feet away from where the car lay in the trees.





not sure if you can tell but this second picture is at least 25 car lengths away from me
 
#41 ·
Bad stretch of road for high speed operation when inexperienced. The entrance and exit ramps on that stretch of the Southern Parkway are very short. The road has many curves where the dividing lines are solid white rather than dashed. There are a few blind rises where you can't see if traffic is stopped ahead. Many motorists veer out of their lanes on curves and aggressively change lanes. The Southern Parkway has a speed limit of 55 MPH like the Long Island Expressway (I-495) and even the Northern Parkway, but there is less margin to exceed the speed limit on this road.
 
#45 ·
that kid had no business being in a car like that.

in my experience, every young driver who has a wrx or an sti wrecks it. i think ive known one person under the age of 22 who kept it out of the trees long enough to sell it and buy something else and he didnt drive all that fast. one kid in my grade in high school slid off the road and hit a tree, breaking both his legs and almost dying in a fire. another kid was drunk and stoned running from the cops and hit a tree 15ft up in the air and spent a few months in a coma. there are a few more but i dont know the details, just that they dont have them anymore.

idk what it is about sti's and wrx's but everybody wrecks them.
 
#48 ·
sad but......

If I had tried to sneak out of my house at 3:30 in the am.....my parents would have killed me 1st.

seriously, where is the responsibility of the teenages, and their parents??? maybe they had one too few "time outs" in their short lives??

I did stoopid sh1t when I was a teen, but not at 3:30 in the morning during a school week.
 
#50 ·
Monday was columbus day. schools are closed.
 
#49 · (Edited)
Thats like getting in a roller coaster and saying "nah i dont need the lap bar"

Ive lost a couple friends from either stupid kids who are inexperienced drivers or them not wearing their seat belt. There should be graduated licensing like in gran turismo. So new drivers are stuck with priuses and honda civics. :beer:

Not that you cant crash a prius or civic at a high rate of speed but it seems the kids with the fast cars are always the ones who are crashing them.
 
#51 ·
Ive lost a couple friends from either stupid kids who are inexperienced drivers or them not wearing their seat belt. There should be graduated licensing like in gran turismo. So new drivers are stuck with priuses and honda civics. :beer:
Japan has a system like that (if I'm interpreting their license system correctly): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_license_in_Japan

Maybe we should make our license tests tougher, really. It takes someone over a year to get their license in GB. Why can't we have that here? Oh right, because driving is a right and not a privilege :facepalm:
 
#52 ·
Three of my friends died in a similar accident when I was in high school. Mercury Capri drifted off the road on a sweeper and hit a telephone pole at more than 100 mph. Car split in half, driver and passenger thrown onto a lawn, back seat passenger remained with the rear part of the car at the pole. The front half tumbled into some guy's restoration project that was under a tarp in his driveway. The homeowner heard the impact and got out of bed to find the passenger, still barely alive, laying in his driveway convulsing. What a way to be woken up in the middle of the night.

I remember how the passenger's body, at the wake, had an obviously huge gash on the forehead covered over with wax or something and heavy amounts of makeup, and wondering why the family didn't just have a closed casket. They were all decent kids, 17 or 18 years old, just casualties of stupid choices. If there's any upside, it's that I remember them all as the young, vibrant people they were, sort of frozen in time.
 
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