Unrestrained and Inexperienced

February 17th 2008 The highway patrol found dead bodies at three wrecks and they say the teenage drivers were drunk in two of the accidents.

The first one happened at about 11:30 pm at McKinley and Sycamore, near Kerman.

A 17 year old driver from Fresno lost control of a Ford SUV causing the vehicle to roll over several times.

2 of the rear occupants, who were unrestrained, were ejected and died at the scene.

All occupants of the vehicle, 5 in total, had been consuming alcoholic beverages.

Upon inspection of the vehicle's seatbelts, none of the rear seatbelts were in use at the time of the collision.

The two other accidents happened in the Madera area, and just a few minutes apart.

At about 4:30 am, a 19-year-old crashed a BMW into concrete poles at Road 29 and Avenue 15 ½.

Police say Jaime Patino was speeding and ran a stop sign before veering off the road and into the concrete. The car flipped and Patino's 21-year-old passenger died.

Police arrested Patino and they're looking into drunk driving charges.

Just minutes later, an 18-year-old died after she flipped her car on Highway 99 near Gateway, on her way back to Sacramento.

Police say she just veered off the road, and then swung the steering wheel too far the other way, trying to get back on the highway.

The car flipped several times before stopping, and the driver was crushed.

Three other teenagers in the car were hurt, but only one has serious injuries.

Police say the driver in this accident probably was not drinking.

Firefighters say they found resumes all over the roadway.

Two teens also died Friday in an accident near Stratford, but in that accident, a 30-year-old man was driving.

Friends and relatives say Juan Moreno was the driver in the accident that also killed his 19-year-old brother Alejandro, his brother's girlfriend, Delfina Galvan, and Neil Hash.

Police say the driver was speeding when he swerved and then overcorrected. The SUV jumped over one canal and crashed into the wall of a second canal.

None of the passengers were wearing their seatbelts.

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