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Source: Orlando Sentinel
Date: March 16, 2011
Author: Arelis R. Hernández

1 dead, 4 hurt: Did street racing lead to fatal crash?

Two pairs of headlights came rushing toward Sahrina Rauch and her 11-day-old baby as they headed home in an SUV on a rural stretch of State Road 50 after visiting family last weekend.

One of the cars swerved violently, left the roadway and flew across the median.

Then that car — a 1999 Honda Accord — smashed head-on into Rauch's GMC Yukon, spinning it 180 degrees, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The FHP is investigating whether the Orlando woman was hit by a street racer.

"It is amazing that anyone survived this," Jeffrey Reiss, Rauch's fiancé and Sophia's father, said.

His fiancee and daughter survived, along with two men in the other car, but a back-seat passenger in the Honda — Yousef Altuwaijri, a 25-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who lived in Osceola County — died, the FHP confirmed Wednesday.

The FHP disclosed little this week about the other car that Rauch spotted just before midnight Saturday.

But the agency confirmed that it is investigating whether the crash was caused by street racing, an increasingly popular illegal activity that has claimed countless lives for the thrill of a few seconds of speed.

"One witness said he saw two cars traveling at a high rate of speed," said FHP spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes. "But we haven't confirmed whether they were competing against each other."

An initial FHP report said 19-year-old Luay Tayeb was behind the wheel with passengers Hamoud Alobaidallah, 21, and Altuwaijri. Tayeb and Alobaidallah also are from Saudi Arabia, and they live in Kissimmee.

State law-enforcement officers and legislators are working to curb the rising problem of street racing by seizing modified street cars, providing education workshops and increasing the penalties for those caught racing.

Still, an untold number of racers and bystanders are being killed, advocates say.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said that between 2001 and 2008, more than 1,000 people were killed nationwide in crashes involving racing. Florida ranks third in the country for fatalities with 50 deaths, behind Texas and California — which together account for about 40 percent of deaths.

But Bryan Harrison, the president of a California-based nonprofit called Evo Street Racers that is working to end illegal street racing, said Florida's pleasant driving climate, extensive network of rural roads and robust car culture makes it a haven for racers.

Harrison called DOT's numbers misleading and a severe undercount because in many places there is no specific definition of illegal street racing.

He talks to cops and witnesses, reads news reports and occasionally visits crash scenes to write studies that describe the consequences.

Harrison found that young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 are the most likely to die, the races typically occur at night, involve imported commuter cars and are usually spontaneous.

"Not only are their driving skills undeveloped but they are participating in illegal activities in cars that can't handle what they're doing," said Harrison, whose best friend was killed in a 2003 street-racing crash. "It's such a bad mix."

The collision with Rauch's GMC Yukon caused the Honda Accord to change direction and head toward a drainage ditch, where it flipped upside down, witnesses said.

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The second car suspected of racing stopped to help, and its occupants talked to investigators, Montes said. But little else was released about those men.

The FHP shut down the crash site at S.R. 50 and Belvedere Road in Bithlo for nearly five hours as investigators retraced the car's path. Glass and plastic debris were scattered all over, including a single flip-flop, pictures show.

Altuwaijri died Tuesday at the hospital. The other two men have been released.

The three men were taking English-language classes in Celebration to go to college, said Greg Triffon, the director of the language center they attended.

"It's tragic and deeply sad," said Triffon, who was at his students' side at the hospital since Sunday.

Tayeb and Alobaidallah are hoping to start classes at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach within the next year, school officials confirmed. They couldn't be reached Wednesday.

Rauch and Sophia were sent home but have returned to the hospital multiple times for treatment since the accident, Reiss said.

Troopers told Rauch that if the car had hit the SUV's side, Rauch's daughter would have been killed. It was only baby Sophia's second trip in a car, Reiss said.The impact would have been extremely serious had Rauch not been driving just under the speed limit, the family was told.

Reiss, who legally raced cars in Michigan, contacted one of the men and their friends via Facebook. He said he understands the human toll after watching his own friends die in Detroit street races.

"I was young and dumb once, too," he said, amazed by pictures he took of the crash. "We were very lucky.

Orginal Article:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-03-16/news/os-car-racing-fatality-orange-20110316_1_fatal-crash-illegal-street-fhp