Deadly games of freeway tag

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In this game of cat and mouse the results are sometimes deadly even for those who don’t play.

Police call it tag — two cars weaving through traffic passing each other at high speeds — and it has been played out by drivers along the sprawling interstates and small city arteries that crisscross the Metroplex for decades.

Most of the players are easily recognizable by other drivers but few are caught by police “It’s very dangerous,” said DeSoto police Sgt. J.C. Burch, who has seen his share of the game’s deadly consequences recently. “What happens with drivers, especially young drivers, is that they don’t know the limits for the vehicle they are driving or their own driving limits. They cause a lot of accidents because they lose control.”

In a string of highly publicized accidents in March, April, and May, eight people in the Metroplex died in separate accidents. In Seven of those deaths, police have said the accidents were caused by motorists playing tag. In one of those accidents, a pregnant woman from Arlington was killed.

Burch and other police officers in the Metroplex say the only way to combat tag games is to toughen state laws and to impose more severe consequences, forcing those caught behind the wheel speeding to spend time behind bars.

Burch says he often sees the results of racing along the five-mile stretch of Interstate 35E that runs – through DeSoto. In the first four months of this year, six people have died in accidents along those five miles and three of those deaths were caused by speeding vehicles, he said. In at least two of those accidents, people were playing tag.

On April 21, a Waxahachie couple were driving home from Walt Disney World with their two daughters when an out-of-control Dodge pickup hit their Suburban, police said.

Laurie Garrett, 34, a front-seat passenger, was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene, police said. Barry Garrett, her 34-year-old husband and the driver, was also thrown from the vehicle. He died six days later at Methodist Medical Center in Dallas.

Police officials say they blame the accident on the drivers of two southbound pickups. Police say the two were playing tag along I-35E and lost control of their vehicles. One of the pickups tried to cut in front of a semitrailer truck, clipped it, spun out of control, and slammed into the Garretts’ Suburban.

The 18-year-old driver of that pickup, Michael William McCarty, was arrested on investigation of criminally negligent homicide and later released.

Burch said police are investigating the accident to determine what charges to file against McCarty.

Burch said that speedsters are often spotted by other motorists, but that police have a difficult time snaring them.

“We get quite a few calls on the freeways where people are — what police call — playing tag. But a lot of times we can’t get a unit there in time to catch them,” he said.

Arlington police Lt Travis Moore said that problem is a common one.

“Unless you have an area that is quite frequently complained about, there’s not really too much you can do,” Moore said. “Fortunately, here in Arlington I don’t think we have a lot of racing-related accidents, but when we do they tend to be types that result in serious injuries and sometimes even fatalities.”

Moore said the city’s busy thoroughfares and winding roads don’t lend themselves to highspeed weaving.

The most recent fatality occurred March 27 when 20- year-old Harvest Nicole Alexander, who was 26 weeks pregnant, was killed in what police said was a racing-related accident. She was on her way home from dinner at her grandmother’s house when a vehicle driven by a racing teenager struck her truck, police said.

She died shortly after midnight just hours after her son, Hayden Bailey Alexander, was delivered by Caesarean section. He died a week later.

On May 7, the Tarrant County district attomey’s office charged Lowell J.R. Spratling, 17, with manslaughter in connection with Harvest’s death.

Last week, Harvest’s boyfriend filed a civil lawsuit against Spratling and the driver of the second car involved in the accident, claiming they are responsible fot his premature baby’s death.

Police say Sprailing was playing tag with another car when his car clipped Harvest’s truck, causing it to roll.

“Racing isn’t something new, it happens everywhere,” Moore said. “We don’t want anyone to do it simply because it can lead to disastrous results, especially because of the speeds involved. Anything can happen that causes you to lose control and go off the road into a car or people.”

That happened April 22 in east De Soto, when the drivers of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and Ford Mustang died in a fiery explosion that spread debris for blocks and injured four other people, police said. Witnesses said the two were racing.

“It was a random act,” Dallas police Lt. Ed O’Bara said. “I don’t think it was premeditated. Two people got up to the location and looked over at each other and decided to race.”

While tag is a serious problem, the bigger problem in southwest Dallas is organized drag racing, O’Bara said.

“Racing is something we have looked at thoroughly to try and address and eliminate,” he said. “We have determined we have to go to the state Legislature and try and strengthen the charges people would face.”

Racing is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $200. O’Bara wants it made a Class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1000 and 180 days in jail.

O’Bara said that Dallas police plan to start lobbying efforts next year and that they believe it will be readily supported.

“Right now we deal with the problem on a day to day basis,” he said. “There are certain states which confiscate or pull the racer’s vehicle That would have a greater impact If we could tell people that if they come to Dallas we have a little more bite through ordinances or the law I think they would go elsewhere.”

Drag racing has become a problem in Fort Worth as well, said L.E. Thomas, a Fort Worth police traffic investigator. Groups hang out in far south Fort Worth on an access road off of Interstate 35W to watch people drag race, he said.

On April 20, one of the racers died.

Zelmo Warr, 46, of Fort Worth, was testing his tricked-out Ford Fairlane in the 10800 block of Interstate 35E in Dallas about 2:30 a.m.

Warr was speeding along the access road in his car, which was equipped with a nitrous-oxide system, which is used to boost a car’s speed, and five-point seatbelts, which are often used in professional racing cars, when he apparently lost control. The car hit a curb, blew out a tire, skidded sideways, and rolled. Warr was thrown from the vehicle and died on the road. Witnesses said he was making one last run before he went home.

“That particular area is frequented by people who race cars,” Thomas said. “The most hazardous thing about this kind of racing is the fact that there are 50 to 200 kids watching people race their cars down there. If a car goes out of control it’s going to be a nightmare.”

Thomas said tickets don’t seem to slow down the racers.

“Making the law tougher would be a big help,” he said. “The racers seem to be absorbing everything else Right now, higher insurance rates and speeding tickets are the only consequences they face if there isn’t an accident, and they don’t seem to have a great concern for getting a ticket.”

Police say the greatest risk is often to the public who don’t realize that they are in the path of racing cars.

On May 4, one of two racing Nissan Maximas slammed into the back left corner of a Ford Explorer that was westbound in the 3600 block of LBJ Freeway near Josey Lane in Dallas. The Explorer, driven by 31- year-old Roy Reynolds, of Irving, spun sideways, toppled onto its side, slammed into a utility pole, and flipped.

Reynolds was partially thrown through the front passenger window and died a short time later.

The driver of the Maxima, Thinh Quoc Nguyen, 17, who police say was traveling at speeds of 89 to 100 mph, faces a charge of manslaughter, police said.

Dallas police Sgt Jim Chandler said innocent bystanders are often injured or killed in these games of speed.

“In general people on the freeway don’t know what’s happening,” Chandler said. “They don’t know to get out of these people’s way.”

Part two of a two-part series on speeding on public roads. Read the first part here.

This story originally ran on June 23, 1997 in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.