Brick Boy’s Death Sparks Push For Safety Changes

BRICK, NJ — Maddy Tracey and Scarlett Cawley say they worry every day about their family and friends who walk along Lanes Mill Road.

The road is the one where their friend, 15-year-old Jackson Mueller, was killed May 19 as he rode his bicycle to Brick Memorial High School, hit by a speeding driver.

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The roughly 2-mile stretch of road begins at Burnt Tavern Road, curving as it passes Lanes Mill Elementary School toward Brick Memorial High School, then turning into a long straightaway for more than a mile, passing Herbertsville Preschool before it reaches Herbertsville Road.

The speed limit is 40, but residents say they see drivers routinely exceed that, estimating they are driving 50 mph or more.

The road has three school zones, one for each of the schools, where drivers are supposed to slow down to 25 mph. Even those get ignored, parents told the Brick Township Council on Tuesday night.

Maddy and Scarlett and the parents who spoke told town officials they want changes that force drivers to slow down along the road.

Jackson, who was near the end of his freshman year at Brick Memorial, was crossing Lanes Mill Road in a crosswalk when he was hit. The 17-year-old driver has not been identified by authorities, but he has been charged with knowingly leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident causing death, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said.

Scarlett, who's 13-1/2 and a 7th grader at Veterans Memorial Middle School, sits next to Jackson's sister on the bus that takes them to the middle school more than three miles away on Van Zile Road. Her brother sat next to Jackson on the bus last year, when the boys were in 8th grade.

"We need a lower speed limit. My dad walks our dog along there. My best friend told me she can't wait to walk to school next year but I don't want her to," Scarlett told the council, her voice breaking. "I just don't want anything to happen to anyone else."

"It was terrifying," said Maddy, who's 14. "He did everything right. An innocent person was killed because of someone else's mistake. We don't want anything like that to happen again."

Jackson's death has been traumatic for the community. As people spoke — especially Maddy and Scarlett — some of those in the audience were audibly crying. Others quietly wiped tears from their eyes.

One mother who spoke to the council said she was on Lanes Mill and came up on the police SUV that was stopped blocking traffic not long after the crash.

"I could see the bike," she said. "That's all I needed to see."

"We see cars fly by all the time," said Marianne Cawley, Scarlett's mother. She lives near where Jackson was killed, and said she has seen his mother, Kim, at the memorial that has grown for days at the corner of California Avenue.

"I don't feel comfortable letting them cross Lanes Mill," she said of her own children.

"That could have been me," said Chelsea Heptig, who lives west of Lanes Mill and whose children must cross the road to get to the high school. "My son has walked to school. My daughter has walked."

Heptig noted the issue isn't just about when kids are walking to and from school, but a persistent safety concern because of all the other activities, including baseball and softball games at the fields across from Brick Memorial, along with football games on Fridays during the fall and kids and families going to Herbertsville Park.

"People are so disrespectful because they just don't want to wait," said Mary Ruppenthal, another resident. She urged the town to take a hard line and issue speeding tickets to drive the message home that people need to slow down.

Brenn Swanson said drivers are constantly running red lights, and said that even Jackson's death has not changed behavior.

"Nobody slowed down," she said. "Within 24 hours everybody was speeding again."

In addition to addressing speeding, parents asked for more flashing lights for pedestrian crossings, which are supposed to tell drivers to stop for pedestrians, and for more crossing guards during school hours.

Crossing guards have not been a complete guarantee of safety, however. Lori Copman, a teacher at Lanes Mill Elementary who had Jackson Mueller when he was in third grade, said there was an incident earlier this year where a crossing guard was hit by a driver.

Acting Police Chief Henry Drew after the meeting said the crossing guard was injured but has since returned to work, and the driver who hit him stayed at the scene.

"We didn't learn from history," Copman said. Kristin Stirtz, the PTA president at Veterans Memorial Middle School, also urged officials to increase traffic patrols, give out more tickets, add sidewalks all along the road and to try to work with Ocean County officials to reduce the speed limit on Lanes Mill Road, which is controlled by the county.

"Please make this Jackson's legacy," Stirtz said.

Drew told residents the police department was in touch with Ocean County Road Department officials the day after the fatal crash to discuss the possibility of reducing the speed limit and addressing the school zones, which currently are just a few blocks around each of the schools.

According to the state Department of Transportation guide on creating school zones, there are minimum distances set but no maximums.

"The speed limit in NJ, unless otherwise posted, is 25 mph when passing through a school zone (N.J.S.A. 39:4-98). Therefore, many school speed limit zones may be as short as 400 ft. However, the beginning and end points of a school speed limit zone should be determined based on the location of other traffic control devices, features and locations where children cross the roadway," the guide says.

Drew also said he and the patrol officers would be checking all of the pedestrian crossing lights and that he would see to it that they are repaired and in working order immediately. He also has ordered more enforcement in the area to address speeding.

"You'll see more officers out there," Drew said. "We will find a way to make it better."

After the meeting, Drew said Sgt. Joseph Rossi, who leads the department's traffic safety unit, has been discussing with county officials what data they need to look at lowering the speed limit.

"I do not know how a mother recovers from what she has to deal with," Mayor Lisa Crate said during the meeting, referring to Kim Mueller. She promised those in attendance the town would do everything in its power to make changes.

That includes trying to put in sidewalks on the part of Lanes Mill Road where currently none exist. Crate said after the meeting the town would be pursuing grants to pay for sidewalks so both sides of the road have them in place.

Previous reporting:

Community Envelopes Brick Memorial Teen's Mourning Family

Vigil Set For Brick Memorial Student Killed In Crash

Teen Charged With Hit-And-Run In Crash That Killed Brick Memorial Student