Should parents be more diligent about keeping their teens from drinking and driving?

Yes.  The thing that always strikes me is that parents are sometimes accomplices in this and that’s probably too strong a word, but we oftentimes find that children were drinking in their home or a friend’s home and the parents were there, and either allowed it or encouraged it.

So I think the first word of warning is don’t let your kids drink until they’re 21.  We’re seeing a lot more prosecution of parents these days that allow graduation parties with alcohol and it’s always a bad idea.  I don’t want to get too preachy, but…

Would it be more responsible of the parents to take their keys away?

Yes, absolutely.  Or if they have suspicion that something like that is going to happen, if your child is going to a graduation party, you know, to talk with them about that.  To explain how mistakes can ruin their lives.  And we’ve had several cases here where kids went to graduation parties and drank to excess and ended up killing friends driving around.  It’s such a tragic circumstance.

And it’s bad enough when adults do it, but with the kids, you certainly would expect that the responsible parents would help with that and sometimes they don’t.