By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Linda Barrett of Middletown looks at the items friends and classmates left for her daughter Kristen Norris, 17 and driver Joseph Adams, 19 who were both killed when the Mitsubishi Eclipse they were in hit this utility pole on Roosevelt Avenue in Middletown. (Photos by Glenn Hartong/The Cincinnati Enquirer)

Linda Barrett looks at her one of her daughter’s favorite things, her makeup table and makeup.

Linda Barrett of Middletown is reflected in a photograph of her daughter, Kristen Norris.

Linda Barrett of Middletown looks at posters friends and classmates had left at the scene her daughter’s fatal wreck.

Kristen Norris followed her parents' rules and drove safely. Her 16-month driving record was spotless.

Then she climbed into the passenger seat of a red Mitsubishi Eclipse with her Valentine's Day date, Joey Adams. At 19, he had a history of careless driving: two suspensions, two crashes and six convictions - half for speeding.

As the pair left Middletown's Lone Star Steakhouse, Adams hit the gas pedal for the last time.

Police say his car was speeding through a residential area at 96 mph when it skidded into a utility pole less than a mile from the restaurant. The impact killed both Adams and Norris - 10 days before her 18th birthday.

"I told her over and over: 'The biggest killer of teenagers is automobile crashes,' " says Norris' mother, Linda Barrett. "Why would he even have a license?"

Adams and Norris were the first of seven Greater Cincinnati teens to die in six traffic crashes within a month - and Adams wasn't the only one with traffic offenses on his record.

Five of the seven teen drivers had prior convictions for violations, totaling 17 among them. The crashes killed five teen drivers and two teen passengers.

The deadly accidents underscore a persistent problem: Despite tougher laws, stricter enforcement and more safety programs, young drivers with repeated violations and accidents are still permitted behind the wheel - sometimes with fatal results.

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• Tougher teen-driving laws sought for Ohio, Ky. • 1 month: 6 wrecks, 7 deaths • WCPO: Teen driving safety

An Enquirer examination of last month's fatal teen crashes shows:

• Five of the drivers had been cited for at least one prior speeding violation; speed was a factor in at least half of the fatal wrecks.

• Three of the six crashes involved underage drivers who had been drinking alcohol, authorities say.

• Only two of the teen drivers had clean driving records - and both of them died while driving irresponsibly, police said.

• Just weeks before the fatal wrecks, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles had warned three of the drivers that their licenses were in danger of being suspended. Two of those drivers later died.

• At least five of the seven dead teens wore no seat belts.

Nationally, among 8,572 teen drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2002, 38 percent had at least one speeding conviction or other moving violation, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That agency notes: "Young drivers tend to be immature and impulsive, overestimating their own physical and driving abilities and underestimating dangers."

During the 1990s, many states, including Ohio and Kentucky, attacked the problem with graduated licensing systems - which increase beginning drivers' privileges as they gain experience and maintain safe records.

Still, states are working to tighten their systems even more, citing the numbers: Teens made up 7 percent of Ohio drivers, yet accounted for 15 percent of fatal crashes in 2002. In Kentucky, teens were 6 percent of drivers, but they were involved in 19 percent of fatal crashes that year.

Fatal wrecks involving teen drivers have hit Cincinnati's northern suburbs especially hard lately. Four of the crashes occurred within 15 miles of each other in Butler and Warren counties.

Officers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol posts have been urging juvenile courts to stiffen penalties for traffic violations. Drivers in the fatal wrecks generally paid fines and court costs of $100 or less for each of their driving offenses. Two had had their licenses suspended. Yet all the drivers' licenses were valid when their accidents occurred.

"It's the same old story: younger drivers, not buckled up, drinking and driving - and driving too fast," Highway Patrol Lt. Mike Sanders says. Even though officers talk about safety in school programs, "some people are not getting the message," he says.

Even repeated warnings from loved ones often don't work.

Timothy Justin Hoff, 19, of Franklin had one previous speeding ticket and habitually drove fast before he was killed in an accident Feb. 16 in Warren County, his stepbrother says.

"His dad told me, 'He needs to slow down or he's going to kill himself.' And I agreed," says Tommy Slaton, 19, of Middletown. The day after that conversation, Hoff was dead and his girlfriend, Bethany Riley, 17, was critically injured. Hoff had been driving at least 56 mph in a 35-mph zone on Lower Springboro Road, according to police. His car slammed into a tree.

"It looked like a taco shell, how it was bent up," Slaton says.

Loved ones had admonished Hoff about his driving, Slaton says - and Hoff would reply: "Don't worry. I can handle this."

The Valentine's Day wreck that killed Kristen Norris and Joey Adams also involved excessive speed and was "entirely preventable," says Norris' mother, Linda Barrett. She says she's sorry for the Adams family's loss. But she's also angry.

"That young man made a deliberate choice when he purposely stepped on the gas - and the speed he went was just totally out-of-bounds," she says. "It was a temporary thrill - with a deadly result."

In a telephone interview, Adams' father said such accidents happen "every day." His son might have veered to avoid an animal in the road, Edgar Adams said. He declined further comment.

Along Roosevelt Avenue, where the posted speed limit is 35 mph, Joey Adams accelerated rapidly, witnesses told police.

"I was following Joey to a friend's house, and he kicked it down," Joe Wagner wrote in a police report. "He took off and pulled away and appeared to hit the brakes and cut the wheel to the left." The car fishtailed. Its passenger side struck the pole, almost folding the car in half.

In the wreckage, police said, they found equipment added to maximize the car's speed: a computer that interfaced with the engine, an oversized turbocharger, and a power-boosting nitrous oxide tank - an illegal modification. The tank was empty, and investigators couldn't determine when it had last been activated.

"Other people, including a mechanic from Mitsubishi, have told me that this car was capable of doing over 180 miles an hour," Middletown Detective Jerry Mossman says. "I worry that it's only a matter of time before I'm investigating another crash like this."

Nearly 600 postings on a memorial Internet site share memories of Adams' charming smile, vibrant personality and his love of cars.

But Adams also had six driving convictions, half of them for speeding. His last speeding citation was Jan. 15, six days after he finished a remedial driving course - for the third time. Adams took that course after Middletown Municipal Judge Mark Wall reduced an Oct. 26 drunk-driving charge to reckless operation.

Wall says he doesn't usually see records of offenses a driver committed before reaching age 18. Without that record, Wall says, Adams may have appeared to be a first-time offender, so he received less punishment.

Wall says he's taking steps now to obtain juvenile driving records of 18- and 19-year-olds who come to traffic court.

A law effective Jan. 1 also may help clamp down on drivers who speed excessively, Wall says. Judges may dock speeders' licenses four points for exceeding speed limits by 30 mph or more - double the previous penalty. Drivers who accumulate 12 points in two years incur six-month suspensions.

Barrett hopes other parents - and friends - will remember her daughter's death and intervene to stop dangerous driving.

"A lot of these situations happen because of peer pressure, as in, 'I'm so cool. I'm going so fast,' " Barrett says. "But how 'cool' do they think it is for a mother to go and pick out a casket? How 'cool' is it for your mother to pick out the last clothes you're going to wear?"

Instead of celebrating her only daughter's 18th birthday on Feb. 24, Barrett mourned at Kristen's freshly dug grave in Middletown's Woodside Cemetery. "I stood there over a pile of dirt," she says, "and thought, 'How utterly ridiculous it is that I am standing over the grave of a young girl who had her whole future laid out.' "

Barrett says she thinks that Kristen, who had volunteered 579 hours as a candy striper at Middletown Regional Hospital, would have wanted her to speak out to help others.

"I can't let her death mean nothing," Barrett says. "I want these teens to think, think, think before they drive. I'm not saying this because I'm a nagging mom. I'm saying this because I want them to live."

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com