I write this in honor of my son Clin­ton Alexan­der Cort. My pur­pose is to draw atten­tion to the tragedy that can occur from teen age dri­ving acci­dents. I write this in the hope that some­one will read this and do the right thing.

Clint, as we called him, was 18 years old and your typ­i­cal all Amer­i­can boy who loved his mom his sis­ter and his car. Clint had many friends and was described as a “big teddy bear” 6foot 4,275 lbs. He loved to cook-it was his pas­sion. He worked after school in Per­ona Farms restau­rant down the street where he lived. Clint dreamed of being a mas­ter chef and start­ing a restau­rant with his sis­ter, Lind­sey. Clint had just started attend­ing the Culi­nary Instiute of Amer­ica, a school that he dreamed about.

Clint’s mom and I were divorced and I was unable to see him for Christ­mas .  We arranged to meet with his sis­ter for din­ner Dec 27 2005. At din­ner, Clint talked the rig­ors of his career path he had cho­sen. It was clear that noth­ing would stop him from suc­ceed­ing. The enthu­si­asm was infec­tious. Clint was truly happy and full of dreams and ambi­tion.
After din­ner we said good­bye but I had a bad feel­ing and I begged him to be care­ful and held on to him until he looked me in the eye and promised me again. Typ­i­cal response, “Ok Dad take it easy”. This was the last time I would see Clint alive. By 11:52pm, he was dead.

At 11:52 ON RT 517 IN ANDOVERTOWNSHIP 4 teenagers dri­ving on a lim­ited dri­ver license, in vio­la­tion of time and num­ber of pas­sen­gers, were play­ing a game called “pad­di­tle. This game is where you see a car with a head light out and you have to hit or tag other occu­pants. The dri­ver turned to hit the pas­sen­ger in the back seat. She turned the car over a dou­ble yel­low line and drove into Clint’s lane, crash­ing through his door and killing him. Clint was next to a guard rail and had no where to go. I have lived with “what if” for the last years. What if the law was fol­lowed? What if they where not given the keys by par­ents? What if inex­pe­ri­enced dri­vers were not dri­ving at night? What if I had held Clint a lit­tle longer? What if Clint had a big­ger car?

Pain is a word Clint’s fam­ily is very aware of-pain that blinds and crushes to the core. Please, if you are a teenage dri­ver, you are not bul­let proof. It can hap­pen to you. Par­ents your worse night­mare can hap­pen. Please do the right thing!!!!!

Writ­ten by Peter Cort