After a 14-year old Pennsylvania lad stole Jeep Grand Cherokee and led police on a high-speed chase that ended with him clipping another vehicle and causing a crash that closed the highway and left the boy in a coma, his mother told reporters that her son wasn’t the only one to blame for the accident.
“I’m not downplaying my son’s role in taking something that didn’t belong to him, but I am saying they actually left their keys in the car and the vehicle could have been taken by anybody,” she said. The mother, who has not been identified in press accounts because, I guess, her son is a minor and some people think that teenagers who steal cars, defy police and endanger lives should have their identities shielded (not me!), also found fault with the Jeep’s owners boyfriend, who followed the vehicle after the kid started driving it away:
“He had no right to chase my son, which it could have been a situation. Maybe it could have been just a joyride down the street. Maybe he wanted to go farther than he felt like walking.”
Yeah, and maybe he was stealing a car. Even after giving the mother a few empathy points because her son is in a coma, her attempts to implicate anyone other than her little scofflaw darling in the accident is telling. Is there any question why this boy thought it was acceptable to go joyriding in a car that didn’t belong to him, without a license to drive? This is a parent who hasn’t taught her child the meaning of such concepts as responsibility, accountability, respect for others, fairness and citizenship, presumably because she doesn’t understand them herself. A quick primer:
- The fact that the keys were in the car does absolutely nothing to exonerate the son or cast blame on the Jeep’s owner. Behaving as if we aren’t surrounded by opportunistic and lawless jerks does not make us fair game for such people. If Mom had raised her son to respect the property of others and society’s laws, the owner would have been able to leave the engine running. She may well conclude that she was foolish to rely on the honesty of her fellow citizens, but the one person who is estopped from telling her so is the one who stole her car, and the enabling parent who spawned him.
- Yes, the Jeep could have been taken by anybody—anybody who was an irresponsible, law-breaking, anti-social fool, that is. Now, if it had been scientifically proven that leaving one’s keys in the car magically transforms law-abiding citizens with functioning ethical compasses into mad joy-riders, the mother would have a valid argument.
- Mom has her rights backwards. 1) Her son had no right to drive off with someone else’s car; 2) He had no right to drive at all, since he wasn’t licensed and 3) He didn’t even have the right to get a license, since he is under age. Meanwhile, any citizen not only has the right but the responsibility to do what he or she can to prevent or stop a crime in progress, especially when it’s a kid driving a potentially deadly vehicle that he probably can’t control.
- “Just a joyride down the street” in a car that doesn’t belong to you, when you aren’t authorized to drive, is still doubly illegal, and still dangerous. Presumably the mother assumes that any pedestrian sonny boy crushes while “just joyriding” is collateral damage, and besides, why was the victim walking in the street? It’s his own fault he’s roadkill!
- “Maybe he wanted to go farther than he felt like walking.” Oh, good point, Mom! Today’s Lesson: Laziness justifies theft.
Teens need role models and ethical instruction, along with clear guidance and sensible discipline, or their unstable brain chemistry will bring them to sorrow. If her son never comes out of that coma, identifying the one who deserves blame will be easy.
Mom.
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Facts: WTAE
Graphic: Dreamstime
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Superb post! I am of the opinion that this wonderful parent is representative of a growing segment of society that shuns personal responsibility and finds it difficult to project values onto their children because they themselves have no standards to live by.
Just another example of “My little angel couldn’t POSSIBLY do anything wrong” in a ridiculously ramped-up example.
That sentiment is just as wrong as when the kid is bothering other people in the movie theater, for example.
–Dwayne
The saddest part of the whole episode is that this mother’s thinking is not out of the normal in this society. If anyone hearing the story gave a moments consideration to her excuses it shows how screwed up our thinking has become.
You’re of course right, Jack; the mother’s statement was stupid.
But… if there’s any time when we should refrain from attacking people for saying stupid, regrettable things, it’s right after their 14 year old son has been in a terrible, tragic car accident.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give this woman the benefit of the doubt, and suppose that how she acts on the worst day of her life might not be a representative sample of how she generally acts.
Fair point. But she’s also accountable for her words, and blaming the victim of her son’s theft approaches signature significance. Crisis is the test of character. This might not be representative, but it is indicative.
I think ampersand is exactly wrong. So much that is wrong and wasteful is done because of this kind of sentiment. She should be confronted about this, because the alternative is to go along with it. She said it, it was published. It must be refuted. Not refuting it, publicly, leads to this being considered a valid opinion. Considering this a valid opinion means possibly arresting and convicting the owner’s boyfriend. It also means that it is OK to “borrow” someone’s car (however you have to) if you are tired of walking.
Some examples of what happens when you go along with it because you don’t want to confront someone who has suffered the loss or injury of their child:
Example #1. In my senior year of high school, one of my classmates was driving his car home at 2 AM (on a school night). His BAC was over twice the legal limit. He was doing 90+ mph in a 45 zone. He didn’t make a turn, went through a fence, over a cliff, clipped the TOP of one of the signs running over the interstate, landed upside down on the interstate and was hit by a semi. His mother insisted the road must not be safe. No one wanted to tell her that the cause of the accident was a drunk minor driving too fast in the wee hours of the morning with the implication that if she kept a little more control of her son he would still be alive. Instead, road studies were implemented (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars) that found the road was perfectly safe, additional safety barriers were installed (in spite of the studies), siphoning money off from needed road maintenance, and the speed limit was lowered for a time (because ?????).
Example #2. Two teenage boys were driving on a 35 mph road that has a gentle curve (30º over 400 yrds). It was during school hours, but the school doesn’t require them to go the last week anymore (state testing is over). They were speeding and didn’t make the curve. They hit a minivan (doing 35 mph) head on with their compact car and pushed it back 50′. Both boys were killed and the minivan driver paralyzed. The school held a hero’s memorial service for them. Their pictures and lives were told over and over again on local TV. The city held a memorial service for them later. Nothing was said about the minivan driver, just about the tragedy that took the lives of these young people. Is this going to promote safer driving practices, or does it just reinforce the idea that you can be as reckless as you want to be and if something happens, that is an “accident”. In two similar wrecks in years past, the drivers have lived (although passengers died). The drivers were not prosecuted because they had “suffered enough” by being injured and seeing their friends die. They were held up as role models, like cancer survivors, of people who had suffered through tragic circumstances.
Also, if you read the article, it is just the mother that claims the keys were left in the car (which makes it seem like they were in the ignition). Her child is in a coma, he probably didn’t tell her that. The car’s owner claimed the keys were in her purse (OK, that might have been in the car) and he would have had to go through her purse to find them. I think it is foolish to do this, but since I got married, I became aware that lots of women do this.
In a related topic, should the child be prosecuted for stealing the vehicle despite his injuries? Should he or his parents be sued for the loss of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which the owner paid cash for, may not have full coverage on and (because it looks like a WK) may be worth $20,000? If not, why should the owner (or the customers of the owner’s insurance company) be forced to pay for this loss?
Back in the early 70’s there was a brief rash of PSA’s on television, imploring drivers to make extra sure they didn’t leave their keys in the car (the visuals showing a teenage boy spotting a car with keys in it, getting in, and driving off) summing it all up with “Please, don’t help a good boy go bad.” The campaign was short-lived, due to viewer outrage, which altogether amounted to “If the boy in question is so good, why’s he out stealing cars?” Well, some things have changed for the worse since the 70’s, but not on the matter stealing cars where, I suspect, a thumping majority of people would still agree that good boys don’t steal cars.