‘I’M TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE’
Conner Guido died in a crash leaving Tabb High School last year. Now, his mother is working to promote safe teen driving.
Tammy Guido will return to the Tabb High School soccer field to give out scholarships to local students in her son’s honor, among the first of several efforts she’s undertaken to memorialize him and enact changes to promote safe teen driving.
Conner Guido was a passenger in a car crash Oct. 26 that killed him and two other Tabb High School students. The boys, who were leaving the school’s homecoming dance, were all 16.
“Every waking breath has been to honor my son,” Tammy Guido said. “I’m trying to make a difference for someone else because it’s too late for Conner.”
And so she has raised money for a memorial scholarship, organized an indoor soccer tournament and met with legislators, school officials and law enforcement to find ways to reduce the number of accidents involving teenage drivers — all efforts that have been hampered by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The tournament she organized to raise funds for scholarships fell on a weekend in March just before the state banned large gatherings, and closures and social distancing has made meetings and gatherings all but impossible. Still, Guido has managed to raise several thousand dollars from individual and business donors to create annual scholarships, which she’ll distribute Monday morning on Tabb’s soccer field.
She’s also caught the ear of politicians that represent York County, who she hopes will introduce and enact several policy changes.
She wants statewide standard that requires a parent to come to their child’s school to show the child’s license and obtain a parking permit. In schools, she also wants to see more support for driver education and an emphasis on the dangers of speeding, which was a factor in the crash Oct. 26, according to Virginia State Police.
Guido commended the “Driving Drunk and Distracted” or “3D” program the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office puts on at York schools. Many divisions in the region perform similar programs, which simulate a crash that kills students and attempts to show the toll that loss has on families and a community.
“It’s a great program,”
Guido said. “Every kid should see it and see it before they start driving.”
The program is conducted on a rotating basis among York County high schools, so not every student has the chance to experience it by the time they start driver education or can get a learner’s permit. Guido said funding may support increasing the frequency of “3D” and similar programs, but she’s also spoken with the Sheriff’s Office about incorporating speed into their lesson. The school division as well said it’s working with the sheriff ’s office on expanding the program.
The last change Guido wants to see is likely the most difficult to enact, she said. Akin to the speed monitors some companies put in their vehicles, she wants to see those monitors in the vehicles of new drivers. In talks with lawmakers, she’s suggested creating some incentive for parents to obtain and install a monitor.
The real incentive, she said, is hopefully the potential to reduce reckless driving.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists traffic crashes as the leading killer of teenagers in the United States — in 2017, an average of six teenagers per day died in crashes. Per mile driven, teenage drivers are three times more likely to be in a fatal crash than a driver 20 or older, and the crash risk increases for teen drivers with the number of passengers in a car.
Near the site of the crash, Guido also asked the Virginia Department of Transportation and York County about safety improvements on Yorktown Road. VDOT’s study found the safety measures there are sufficient, but it did replace a curve sign that had aged beyond its useful life. York County worked with Dominion Energy to install streetlights on the road as well.
She’s also working on a website that would allow teenagers to report anonymously when they see behavior or activities that they want to let their or other authorities know about. “There can be so many social repercussions to reporting something at school,” Guido said. She notes that the driver in the crash that killed her son was not old enough to have a license, but he was driving between home and school.
At Tabb, Guido wants to install memorials for Conner, similar to ones there and at other York schools for students, staff or graduates who have died. But she feels frustrated that she doesn’t know if or when a memorial will go up. She said a memorial serves both to honor Conner and potentially remind students to take caution in a vehicle. She feels that process still feels stuck eight months since the crash.
A school division spokeswoman said internal efforts at the school by a group of students had to be delayed once they could no longer come into the building, but they were working on a memorial garden and developing a safety week and safety pledge. The division, she said, is developing an operating procedure for situations that involve the death of a school community member.
While lots of efforts remain in the works, Guido said giving out the scholarships is a special first step. Soccer was Conner’s passion and much of her life revolved around her son’s games and practices, and the scholarship event takes place on the soccer field where Conner played.
“He really loved playing for Tabb,” Guido said.
She’s always quick to dote on her son’s athletic talent, noting he helped bring the team to the state tournament. She welcomes anyone with a connection to Conner or the desire to honor him to attend the scholarship event. To learn more about or donate to the scholarship, visit facebook.com/connergweedo.