Another Street Racing Death in Lawrenceville - this time a Mazda 6 involved

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RacerXGirl

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2003 Black Mica MazdaSpeed Protege
Another one...

Teen killed in possible street-racing crash

By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/04/07

A 16-year-old passenger was killed Sunday night when a Mazda 6 and another car it may have been street racing lost control and struck two other vehicles in the Lawrenceville area of Gwinnett County.

It was the second fatal crash possibly involving street racing reported by Gwinnett County police in the past two months in the area.

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Witnesses told police that the Mazda and a Honda Accord were speeding east on Sugarloaf Parkway toward Old Norcross Road about 7 p.m. when a third car pulled out of a driveway, police said.

The Honda clipped that vehicle, and the impact caused the Honda to cross the median into oncoming traffic, county police Cpl. Illana Spellman said.

The Mazda, which was traveling behind the Honda, swerved to avoid the first collision, also ended up in oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a Kia Sportage, Spellman said.

The teen passenger in the Mazda died at the scene. Police withheld his name while they notified his family.

The Mazda's driver was critically injured and was taken to a local hospital, police said. The Honda's driver was not hurt, and the motorists of the other two cars were taken to a hospital for evaluation.

If it is proven that the two cars were racing, their drivers each could face a felony charge of first-degree vehicular homicide, Spellman said.

On Oct. 14, a man was killed in a wreck that police think was caused by two drivers racing each other on Lawrenceville Highway.

Witnesses told police that two drivers were racing southbound on Lawrenceville Highway just before dusk Oct. 14 when they reached a bend in the road near Huston Drive in the Lawrenceville area.

Jeffrey Kim Aviles, 15, lost control of a Toyota Celica he was driving, skidded into the center turn lane and struck a third vehicle head-on, police said. That car's driver, Leonel Vargas, died at the scene.

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Heyward and I were talking about this last night while watching the news....

fawking idiots....
 
they deserve everything they get i hope they throw the book at them. I can only imagine what the cops are going to start doing on that road with two fatalities from street racing now. Its going to turn into another barrett parkway where you cant drive down that road in a modified car without having to worry about getting nailed
 
That's what that was. I was driving home last night and Sugarloaf was blocked off from Old Norcross until Cruise Road, both lanes. There were so many poolice cars there. Why the hell do people think they can get away with racing? It is a major risk for both tickets and accidents.
 
Well if they were 15 and 16 i dont think there friends would be much older or mature, Its really a sad thing. these kids go to the movies and see 2fast2furious then they think that there moms car is a racecar when they go out. and it states that a person came out of there driveway... WTF? were these kids going down residential areas? I mean thats just idiotic. And it could have been one of us or someone you know that these dumbasses hit. I have no sympathy, I will admit we have all been stupid, i just havent been that stupid. Its kind of like that guy in april in the 350 in houston that split his car in half on a very small street, With his gf in the car, what ******* idiots.
 
yeah, heard it on the news last night. Bunch of asshats. Note to self: Stay off of Sugarloaf in Lawrenceville with the Miata..........
 
Andrewsmc said:
Well if they were 15 and 16 i dont think there friends would be much older or mature, Its really a sad thing. these kids go to the movies and see 2fast2furious then they think that there moms car is a racecar when they go out. and it states that a person came out of there driveway... WTF? were these kids going down residential areas? I mean thats just idiotic. And it could have been one of us or someone you know that these dumbasses hit. I have no sympathy, I will admit we have all been stupid, i just havent been that stupid. Its kind of like that guy in april in the 350 in houston that split his car in half on a very small street, With his gf in the car, what ******* idiots.
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The accident took place right after a residential area, so the "driveway" was probably an entrance to a business.
 
Not looking forward to the cops now. I bet they will go above and beyond to nab drivers now (especially in modded cars) because of others like in this crash acting dumb. Not cool (bang)
 
Shadow102 said:
they deserve everything they get i hope they throw the book at them. I can only imagine what the cops are going to start doing on that road with two fatalities from street racing now. Its going to turn into another barrett parkway where you cant drive down that road in a modified car without having to worry about getting nailed
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Agreed.

I work about 7 miles away from Sugarloaf and already know the Qwinnett county cops are complete assholes, this won't help much.
Luckily I know most of the cops since they've shopped at my work.
 
Shadow102 said:
they deserve everything they get i hope they throw the book at them. I can only imagine what the cops are going to start doing on that road with two fatalities from street racing now. Its going to turn into another barrett parkway where you cant drive down that road in a modified car without having to worry about getting nailed
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I totally agree. That's horrible. What makes anyone think it's safe to street race? There are so many factors that make it so unsafe it's insane.

Cops are always watching my car when I drive by them or they drive by me. I don't drive crazy & I usually have a kid in the car, but because I drive a bright yellow import I'm a target.

We went up to Blairsville a few weekends ago. When we were coming back, just before getting back on 575, we saw 4 cops had pulled over two "tuner" cars (2 cop cars for each car). Both going south - one on the median side & the other on the other side...It appeared to us that they were street racing & I hope they got some major tickets. I am so glad that we had missed all that by mere minutes as we had my son & baby nephew in the car. Luckily, no accident...Looked like the cops got them before it got out of hand.
 
More information on that wreck:

Road death: 'Teens just don't get it'

By ANDRIA SIMMONS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/07

Maybe they were thrill seeking. Maybe they were just in a hurry.
Regardless of the reason, police say two teenage drivers who were speeding on a busy Lawrenceville road Saturday never reached their destination. Instead, according to investigators, they caused a four-vehicle wreck that put four people in the hospital and a 16-year-old in the morgue.

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Witnesses told police that the drivers of a red Mazda 6 and a gray Honda Accord were speeding as they traveled east on Sugarloaf Parkway around 7 p.m., said Cpl. Illana Spellman, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Police Department. Some witnesses also said the cars appeared to be racing, Spellman said.

The Honda clipped another car that was turning out of a grocery store parking lot. The Mazda traveling behind the Honda swerved to avoid that accident, struck the median and veered into oncoming traffic. It then slammed head-on into a Kia Sportage, Spellman said.

Zohaib Somani, a 16-year-old male passenger in the Mazda, died at the scene. Four other patients were transported to Gwinnett Medical Center with injuries of varying severity. They included the driver of the Mazda, 17-year-old Akbar Byayani of Lawrenceville, who was in critical condition Monday.

Byayani and the driver of the Accord Sohel Sultan Ismail, 18, of Lawrenceville could each face a felony charge of first-degree vehicular homicide and other traffic charges if investigators determine that they were racing, Spellman said.

Prosecutors almost always seek prison time in vehicular homicide cases that involve street racing, said Phil Wiley, chief assistant district attorney for Gwinnett County. In a similar case three years ago, two teenagers were sentenced to four years in prison after they pleaded guilty to reckless driving and vehicular homicide in a wreck that killed a passenger in another car, Wiley said.

Zohaib Somani's family declined to be interviewed at their home Monday.
At Peachtree Ridge High School, where Somani was a junior, counselors were available to speak with students who needed to talk about losing their friend, said Sloan Roach, spokeswoman for Gwinnett County Public Schools.

Lynn Brunatti was picking up her son, Chris, who is also a junior, when she paused in the parking lot. Brunatti said she had heard about the wreck on the news.

"It's gut-wrenching," said Brunatti, who worries about her two sons even though they have taken defensive-driving courses. "They walk out the door, and then you put them in God's hands. That's all you can do."
Brian Thomas, who owns a Quizno's restaurant adjacent to the crash site, said he has been clamoring for years without success for the county to install a stop light in front of the Publix at 4850 Sugarloaf Parkway. Without it, customers have to turn left across three lanes of traffic to exit the retail store parking lots on both sides of the street.

Thomas said he's seen at least one major collision a month in the same location.

"If you were to sit there for just 15 minutes and watch the traffic, I guarantee you're going see people racing," Thomas said.

"If somebody pulls out in front of you, you're dead. You don't have any way to react to it."

The accident Sunday was possibly another in a string of fatal crashes resulting from street racing in metro Atlanta.

In 2003, teens who were racing caused two fatal wrecks only a month apart in Norcross and Snellville.

In Cobb County that year, two male passengers in a Camaro were killed in a contest of speed between two cars on Interstate North Parkway. One of the deceased had a pregnant wife, and the other was engaged.
Last month, less than two miles from the site of Sunday's crash, a 20-year-old Lawrenceville man, Leonel Vargas, was killed in a collision with a 15-year-old driver. Witnesses told police that the 15-year-old was racing with another car on Lawrenceville Highway when one of the cars hit Vargas' car.

For years, Woodrow Gaines, the director of Fear This 4 Life, a Gwinnett-based driver-training program for teenagers and parents, has been waiting for the one wreck that will jolt teenagers into an awareness that speeding kills.

It hasn't happened.

"Teens just don't get it," Gaines said. "Nobody in that crash yesterday woke up saying, 'Today is going to be my last day,' or 'Today I am going to kill somebody.' Nobody thinks about that. They think they are invincible."
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I feel bad for the family that lost their son as well as the innocent parties that were involved. As for the two asshats driving....give them the max. sentence and hopefully it will deter others from street racing.
 
dammit the terrorists are attacking our street racing now...sorry couldnt help myself

but seriously it figures its a bunch of children again you never see 35yr old Bob schmoe and 67 yr old Joe Smith were street racing and killed somebody...they are always under 20. The other unfortunate part was the honda was beating the mazda
 
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