Police are investigating the cause of a single-car crash that resulted in the death of a 16-year-old Ayer girl and seriously injured three other teens.

The others in the car were a 16-year-old girl from Shirley and two teenage boys, an 18-year-old from Shirley, who’s believed to have been the driver, and an 18-year-old from Bolton.

A preliminary investigation suggests that the Ayer girl who died was a passenger in the 2001 Ford Mustang that went off the highway, down an embankment and into the woods. The Mustang was traveling north in the right lane. As it approached other cars ahead of it in the right lane, the driver moved into the left lane and lost control of the car. It spun as it went off the right side of the road.

Cars are truly a scourge. I hope that young man’s parents feel the pain of knowing they’re partially responsibility for that girl’s death.