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For Alex Harp, the crash site served as a place where he could say a final farewell to two friends and schoolmates, 17-year-old Victoria Swanson and 15-year-old Jordain Rust.

In silence Wednesday, he walked past reporters and television cameras. He walked about 70 steps in long grass flattened by tires, past the plastic litter of broken car remnants.

When he got to a spot where he thought Victoria and Jordain's car had stopped, he knelt and rubbed the back of his neck, his head bowed.

"I don't know if I'll be around for the funerals," Harp said after about 20 minutes of being alone at the scene. He is scheduled to leave for the Marines on Sunday. "I had to come here to pay my respects, to say goodbye, because I really didn't get the chance to."

Authorities released few details Wednesday about a three-vehicle crash that killed four people, including three Princeton-area teens.

Tuesday's collision was the third deadly accident involving Twin Cities metro area teens in the past two weeks. It also left a friend of two of the victims to wonder how to make the fatalities stop.

Hoping for an end

"I just hope that this is the end," the 18-year-old Harp said as he overlooked the crash site at the intersection of Hwy. 95 and Dolphin Street NW. "It just needs to stop. It's just too many."

State Patrol Lt. Mark Peterson declined to say what factors investigators believe may have contributed to the accident.

The roads were wet, a patrol report reads, but Peterson said that he could not comment about whether that contributed to the three-vehicle crash. Instead, he deferred all questions to the facts in the report.

At 2:29 p.m. Tuesday, a semitrailer truck was eastbound on Hwy. 95 driven by Scott Harder, 40, of Mora, Minn. A Buick driven by Brian Olson, 18, of Otsego, Minn., was northbound on Dolphin Street NW. The third vehicle was a car driven by Lisa Vandervegt, 23, of Ogilvie, Minn.

Vandervegt, Olson and Olson's two passengers -- Rust, of Ramsey, and Swanson, of Zimmerman -- all died. Harder's injuries were not life-threatening.

"The investigation will clear everything up," Peterson said. "We won't be releasing anything until that is done."

With no answers, Harp was left to wonder what might have happened. Was the sound system too loud? Could the drivers have been distracted? Could a downpour that passed through Princeton have contributed to the accident?

Whatever the reason, the deaths marked a sorrowful spike in the number of Princeton High School teenagers killed in car accidents in the past 16 months. Last year, three students were killed in three car accidents.

JoBeth Miller, a 16-year-old junior, was killed March 1. Taylor Otto, a 15-year-old whom friends knew as Tate, died 18 days later. Jon Schnackenberg, a 16-year-old junior, died in a car crash the night before homecoming.

The high school yearbook includes dedications to each of them.

A national study released Monday by a physician-led traffic safety group based in Chicago shows that teens, who make up about 6 percent of drivers, are involved in a disproportionate number of fatal crashes.