EDITORIAL:

If your 14-year-old son died, run over by a pick-up truck as he biked to school, what would you do?

Many would languish in grief. Some would lash out in anger. It’s hard not to imagine lawsuits.

And who could blame them?

It’s impossible to make any sense out of the death of someone like Danny Oates — or any teenager for that matter. All children are meant to represent the future, opportunity, promise. Not mourning, memories, the finality of death.

All too often in these cases, someone sues to make sense of it all, to find a scapegoat, to make someone pay.

Not Paul and Kristi Oates.

Yes, Danny’s parents have filed claims with Huntington Beach and the Huntington Beach City School District.

And you can’t sue unless you’ve first made a claim and it’s rejected.

But that does not mean the Oateses plan to sue the school district and the city.

In their claims, they say the lack of safety features like crossing guards, stop signs, lighted crosswalks and other factors helped kill their son in September when a Ford F-150 truck slammed into him. Danny was in the bike lane at the time and was wearing his safety helmet.

Paul Oates understands there’s little anyone could have done to prevent the accident.

A police affidavit filed last month suggests the pickup’s driver, Jeffrey E. Woods, 20, of Huntington Beach, was texting about a drug deal at the time of the crash and may have been doped up by an opiate. Authorities have not filed charges against him.

Nevertheless the Oateses press on with their case for improved safety at the intersections near school, and the school board has rejected their claim.

City officials are still reviewing the claim against them.

“I’m just trying to help these other kids get to school,” Paul Oates said. “I want to help them get some stop signs and crossing guards. We absolutely do not want a penny from them.”

It’s hard to quarrel with the school board’s rejection of the claim. And it is equally difficult to take issue with the claim in the first place.

After Danny died, many Huntington Beach residents clamored for the city to improve traffic safety on main drags like Indianapolis Avenue. City records showed that before Danny died at Indianapolis near Everglades Lane there were no reported accidents there for more than five years.

But city traffic experts were quick to point out that Indianapolis’ intersections near schools required close attention and the City Council in December approved a number of improvements at those crosswalks.

“I’ve got nothing against those guys,” Oates said of city officials. “They’ve been wonderful, especially the Police Department. It’s not anything personal. But I believe there’s a platform now that’s established because of that loss, and I’m trying to get something to happen.”

If all this amounts to improved traffic and it saves some lives then that’s all that really matters.