Parents make politics personal

JEFFERSON CITY — It was a voice mail greeting from a teenager’s cell phone — one that most of her friends rarely heard because she always picked up. “She didn’t want you to hear this,” the grieving father told a hearing room full of state representatives. “She wanted to talk to you live.”

Marty Siddall, father of Paige Siddall, a 17-year-old Rock Bridge High School student who died in a car accident in November, played the greeting as he testified Tuesday in support of a House bill that proposes stricter laws for teenage drivers.

He was one of three Columbia parents who have lost children in traffic accidents and testified before the Missouri House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee.

House Bill 609 would prohibit drivers with an intermediate driver’s license from talking on a cell phone while driving, and would require Missouri high schools to provide driver’s education courses.

Intermediate driver’s licenses restrict teens between the ages of 16 and 18 from driving between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. and restricts the number of passengers allowed.

“This would spare families the loss and pain that mine has had to endure,” Siddall told the committee. “She did not have the proper skills to correct,” he said, describing the crash in which his daughter lost control of her car on Route K southwest of Columbia.

Siddall said he contacted Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, the bill’s sponsor, after he read about it in the newspaper.

“This (legislation) comes to me as a no-brainer,” he said in a telephone interview after the hearing. “I believe in the legislation, so I called (Baker) and asked if I could do anything, including testify.”

Baker’s passion for the issue was clear as she comforted parents fighting back tears as they talked about the loss of their children. She told the committee that the bill was “an opportunity to save the lives of our most precious citizens, our teenagers.”

She said watching her own children lose four friends in one year was part of her inspiration. “This problem kept me up at night,” she told the committee.

Tuesday’s hearing came on the heels of the death Feb. 28 of Ashland teenager Amanda Nowlin, 16, who was driving her sister to school when their car was struck as they crossed U.S. 63.

Lori Popejoy, whose son Adam was killed in a 2002 traffic accident, also testified. “I am the face of a parent who lost my son,” she told the committee. She added that her sister-in-law was involved in an accident with a teenage driver four years after her son’s accident. “Lives were shattered,” she said.

Cindy Hutchinson, whose son Tommy and his friend Brandon Wright-Hyler died in a 2003 accident, also testified in support of the bill. “This is not just going to affect some students,” she told the committee. “This is going to affect every student and every family.”.

Karla DeSpain, president of the Columbia School Board, told the committee that the bill “could be a victory for our communities.”

She told the committee that Columbia has not offered driver ’s education courses since 1993 because of the cost and a lack of teachers and time.

In a phone interview after the hearing, DeSpain said online classes are more efficient and make more sense for a large district like Columbia. “One of the problems in our district is that we have 1,200 freshmen,” she said. “With the virtual programs, there can be 100 people on line at a time.”

Baker said in a phone interview that it would be up to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to decide if the bill would require both public and private Missouri high schools to provide driver’s education courses. “I don’t see why we couldn’t make it accessible to all students.”

Two driver’s education teachers — one from the Wentzville school district and another from St. Louis — also testified on the bill’s behalf, saying that teenagers need formal training behind the wheel. There was no testimony against the bill.

Baker stressed the urgency of passing the bill in a phone interview after the hearing. “Every year we delay is lives lost.”