Girl who studied teen car deaths is killed

RALEIGH, N.C., Nov. 10 (UPI) -- A head-on collision has killed a North Carolina girl who studied teenage highway deaths for her senior project in high school.

Shannon Nicole Adkins, 18, is the 27th teen in Johnston County to die in a crash since the beginning of 2006, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Monday.

Adkins was driving her Toyota pickup near her home in Clayton Saturday night when a woman in a full-size Ford pickup going in the opposite direction crossed over to Adkins' lane striking her vehicle head-on.

Authorities say Adkins' Toyota flipped over and came to rest upside down atop a wooden fence, trapping the teenager inside.

The other driver, Desiree Olsen, 29, was charged with driving while impaired. She remains hospitalized in fair condition.

Adkins death comes less than a week before a planned Johnston County forum on ways of combating teenage highway deaths.