ARLINGTON — Daniel Carbajal would have celebrated his 33rd birthday in August.
He came from a large family in a close-knit community and would have grown up with a couple of rambunctious relatives close to the same age.
It’s hard to say who he might have been and what he might have done with his life.
Daniel was just shy of 10 months old when a drunken driver lost control of the car he was in. The baby died at the scene of the crash, near the intersection of 67th Avenue Northeast and 191st Place Northeast.
It was Sunday, June 20, 1982, and Daniel’s mother, Linda Carbajal, then 19, was going out with friends for Father’s Day. She had Daniel perched on her lap. A friend’s husband was driving. Carbajal’s friend and the couple’s baby also were in the car.
“Daniel was just a happy little kid. He was just learning how to try to get himself up to walk, and I’m never going to see that. I’m never going to see the kind of man he was going to be,” Carbajal said.
“It happens in an instant. That’s the truth. It just takes a second.”
Carbajal’s younger sister and Daniel’s aunt, Joyce Phillips, has been working with the city of Arlington to establish a memorial sign program for victims of drunken driving accidents. The City Council approved it May 4.
“It’s something that I think can bring families some closure and remind people that it does happen in your backyard and it does happen to your family,” Phillips said. “Hopefully getting the signs out will make people say, ‘Yeah, someone died here because someone made a mistake. Let’s not make that same mistake.’”
Arlington’s program is modeled after the state Department of Transportation’s memorial signs, said Jay Downing, the city’s maintenance and operations supervisor. The white, rectangular signs say, “Please Don’t Drink and Drive,” with a victim’s name finishing the phrase, “In Memory Of …,” below.
The signs can be placed near the scene of a crash where the driver was convicted of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence or killed themselves while driving intoxicated.
Two signs go up facing opposite directions so both lanes of traffic can see them. A sponsor, generally a family member, must apply for the signs and, if their application is approved, pay $250 for the signs, posts and installation costs, according to city documents.
Arlington hasn’t had many drunken driving fatalities on city roads in recent years, Downing said. He knows of one in the past five years.
Carbajal and Phillips hope the new sign program will help keep that number low.
Phillips was 3 years old when her nephew died. It’s hard to believe she has lost 33 years with him, she said.
“It was just a shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have been doing what they were doing situation,” she said.
Carbajal wants the signs to make people think twice about their behavior behind the wheel, whether it’s drunken, distracted or aggressive driving. Poor decisions are never worth someone’s life.
For years, she struggled to cope with losing her son. Now, she has a grown daughter who will never know her brother. Carbajal often drives past the spot where Daniel died. She thinks of him every day. She hasn’t had a drink of alcohol in 22 years, she said. She’s tried to learn from the tragedy, and she hopes others can, too.
“Just think when you’re driving. Be careful,” Carbajal said. “We weren’t. We were reckless, and we shouldn’t have been, and a precious little life was lost.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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