Last week I had the somewhat surreal experience of taking my eldest son, AJ, to the DMV to pick up his learner’s permit. Sixteen years after I first buckled him up in his car seat, he could now be the one behind the wheel, as long as a licensed adult is riding shotgun.

My boy’s ascent to legal driving age was one of the many reasons for me to celebrate this Father’s Day. But the rite of passage that comes when your kids — and their friends — become old enough to drive also comes with considerable anxiety for parents. And on Father’s Day, it came with heartbreak for several other Long Island dads, and moms.

Around the same time I watched my two boys and their two cousins race for supremacy in the newest Mario Kart World, Luis Gonzalo Barrionuevo-Fuertes, 18, of Moriches, was at the wheel of a 2009 Toyota Camry, packed with others teenagers along Old Stone Highway in East Hampton. Suffolk police say he had been drinking at the beach.

Around 7:30 p.m., Barrionuevo-Fuertes lost control of the vehicle, which overturned and slammed into a tree. Passenger Scarleth S. Urgiles, 19, of East Hampton, died at the scene, according to police. Six other teens were hospitalized with injuries. (He has pleaded not guilty to charges, including driving while intoxicated.)

The men in the lives of the teenage victims in Sunday’s crash will likely never again mark another Father’s Day without flashing back to images of ambulance lights, an airlift helicopter, and police extricating a lifeless body from the roadside wreckage.

Since learning of this story, the image I’ve flashed back to is me, as a brand-new father, tugging with all my might on the straps that secured AJ’s rear-facing car seat to make sure he would be as safe as possible when I transported him home from the hospital back in 2009. From that moment on, the responsibility of safely driving him around has weighed heavily on me.

But, like most parents, I’d gladly accept that responsibility before handing it off to someone else, much less a teenager. For all the trust I have in my kids, and even many of their friends, ultimately they’re still children, and prone to the kind of questionable decisions that children often make. And, the reality is, even when they reach their 18th birthday and are legally considered adults, they typically still have a lot of growing up to do.

If you’re lucky, the worst of the choices made by your teenage son or daughter may come with a speeding ticket or a dented bumper. But, as Sunday’s East Hampton crash illustrates, sometimes the consequences are far worse.

The moment you hand car keys to your child can fill you both with pride, and dread.

On the one hand: Hooray! They’re old enough to drive.

On the other: Oh no. They’re old enough to drive.

Every 7 minutes on average a traffic crash causing death, injury or significant property damage happens on Long Island. A Newsday investigation found that traffic crashes killed more than 2,100 people between 2014 and 2023 and seriously injured more than 16,000 people. To search for fatal crashes in your area, click here.