By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Wisconsin State Trooper Steve Lindemann has lived the nightmare portion of his job.
He’s had to knock on doors and tell people – a parent, a spouse, a significant other – that someone they love is dead in a traffic accident.
“Usually, I’m accompanied by a guy in a black suit with a white collar,” he said Monday to the assembled students of Catholic Central High School. He added quickly that, since he was in a Catholic school, he knew the students were aware “that’s a priest.”
And he never wanted to have to do that part of his job again.
“It sucks,” he stated simply.
Lindemann, joined by representatives from AT&T and AAA, and Mayor Bob Miller, made the “It Can Wait” presentation Monday morning at CCHS. The school won a $1,000 donation and the assembly through the AT&T “My Business Cares” program.
The school was nominated for the program by Jim and Mary Hurst. The “My Business Cares” program aims to stop texting and driving.
Students were first shown several witness videos. One was a mother from Milwaukee whose son had been paralyzed by a texting driver, while others highlighted a driver who had killed members of an Amish family and also a businesswoman who is unable to live a normal life due to a brain injury suffered in a texting-related crash.
Lindemann invited two students out of the audience to stretch a tape measure to a length that showed how far a car would travel before a driver could even respond to a threat on the road.
Generally, Lindemann said, a driver will respond within a half second to three-fourths of a second. A car traveling at 35 miles per hour will travel 51 feet in just one second, making it hard to react.
Add in texting, which can distract a driver for that long or longer, and the dangers are evident.
Miller said the average text these days takes five seconds. After watching the videos with the students, he asked, “could you live with yourself knowing you had caused one of those scenarios you just saw?
“Would any of you ever do something that would knowingly harm someone else?” he asked. “I urge you to take the pledge.
“No text is worth your life, your friend’s life, who maybe is traveling with you, or that 3-year-old who darts into the street.”
But for all the talking by the adults in the room, it was the students themselves who made the biggest point of all. Given a chance to drive a simulator that mimicked driving a real car – and with the driver’s view broadcast on a projection screen, Homecoming King Nolan Girard and Queen Hannah Uhen both stepped up on stage.
After figuring out the controls and getting a chance to drive for a bit, both were asked to Google search for the population of Wisconsin.
Girard ran a red light and was plowed into by an SUV, and when Uhen turned to ask just what she was supposed to search for, she ran her car up and over a curb toward a light pole.
The results drew laughter from their classmates, who also tried to shout advice, but the too-obvious results also seemed to hit home.
“I thought it would end up being easier,” Girard said. “I was very surprised that I killed people at the red light.”
Uhen added, “It was harder than I thought.”
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