Five dead in dramatic Florida crash involving young drivers

Five people died early Saturday morning when a driver ran a red light and slammed into the victims’ car, the latest in a string of multiple-casualty car crashes involving young drivers nationwide.

The crash happened around 12:30 a.m. at the I-95 interchange with Blue Heron Road in Riviera Beach, north of Palm Beach, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Tim Frith told the Sun Sentinel that Jabari S. Kemp, 21, was leaving the northbound lanes of the freeway in a 2008 Mercedes when he “T-boned” the Lexus carrying the victims.

Three people were thrown from the Lexus, which overturned after the collision. All three females and two males in the Lexus died. The victims were in their teens and early 20s.

Debris from the wreck hit a third vehicle but did not hurt its driver.

Whether Kemp was impaired at the time of the collision is still under investigation, the Palm Beach Post reported.

The crash echoed early accidents that have devastated families and communities.

In March, an Indiana teen blew through a stop sign at more than 80 mph, killing his passenger and two other teens when his pickup truck hit theirs.

In late March, five people died in an early-morning crash when an 18-year-old rear-ended their van on I-15 northeast of Las Vegas. Police arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Outside of Chicago, two boys and two girls died in mid-March when they drove into a creek bloated with rainwater.

The same week, six of the eight people in an SUV died when a 19-year-old driver sped around a looping piece of roadway called “Dead Man’s Curve” by locals in northeastern Ohio. The vehicle hit a guardrail and flipped, coming to rest upside-down in a pond. The two survivors had to swim to escape. The driver, who perished in the crash, did not have a driver’s license, according to police cited by the Associated Press.