Miss Illinois shares lifesaving message with Mount Pulaski teens

[May 24, 2011]  MOUNT PULASKI -- Miss Illinois was the guest speaker at Mount Pulaski High School on Monday and delivered a message she hoped would save lives. With audience participation and by sharing personal experiences, Whitney Thorpe-Klinsky created an excellent case against distracted driving.

Anything that will keep someone from driving to the best of their ability can be considered distracted driving. The simplest things can take a driver's eyes and attention from the road and allow actions to take their own course, instead of causing a reaction that can avoid an accident, and possibly death.

"It is a choice," Whitney told the students, "and it is up to you to make that choice. Is it worth your life?"

She told the audience there is no such thing as multitasking -- that studies have shown people cannot focus on more than one task at a time and are only partially paying attention to each area of activity when faced with more than one. She said that in three seconds, at normal highway speed, a vehicle can travel the length of a football field. A lot can happen in that length of space and time when someone is texting, adjusting their hair in the mirror, changing the radio station or reaching for something.

Distracted driving is also driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, which impairs judgment and slows reaction time. Whitney shared a personal experience of losing friends during her first year of college to a drunk driving accident. The driver is now serving a 20-year prison term.

By asking students to volunteer to sit in a simulated seating arrangement to explain the situation, Whitney told of her friends' personalities and ambitions, putting a face with a name and making the outcome all that much more real.

The story of a mother who has only the smell of her son's sweatshirt to comfort her and remind her of his existence brought silence to the audience.

Whitney closed by telling students: "Look at your cellphone. Read the last message. Is it worth your life? Is it worth having your mother smell your sweatshirt to feel close to you? Is it worth spending years in prison because you couldn't control yourself and failed to consider the consequences?" 

[By MARLA BLAIR]