Tony Baldwin was sitting in his Waterford High School history class when his teacher passed out applications for the chance to win a new car. Every student eagerly filled out the application, swiftly answering some easy road safety questions.
Then came the fine print.
Students also had to write an essay on why they deserved nomination as Ohio’s Safest Young Driver in 2002.
“A lot of people stopped at the essay,” Baldwin said.
But the 17-year-old continued. His thoughts focused on the cousin and two friends he lost in separate recent car accidents. He wanted to share their stories.
“It took me half an hour to write it at home after school,” Baldwin said. “The words just poured out of my head.”
Baldwin wrote about his cousin, killed by a drunken driver in 1999. He then wrote about his two friends — Justin Carney and Melissa Weckbacher — killed in September 2001 in a car whose driver attempted to take a county road curve at 82 mph. Baldwin didn’t want to lose anyone else.
“Tony was able to bring home to us that there are teen-agers who are serious drivers,” said Marysville Honda representative Sharon Van Winkle.
For the second year, Honda sponsored the driving safety event, awarding a new 2002 Honda Civic to one of 12 finalists chosen from about 1,000 submitted essays from across Ohio.
“This is the time of year when headlines are all too sad about teen drivers and we wanted to do something positive to encourage and recognize teen drivers who take driving seriously,” Van Winkle said.
The dozen finalists, including Baldwin, received driving lessons from experts, viewed the latest safety technology and took written safety tests. The event ended on May 30 with two driven runs through a road safety course set up at the Ohio Transportation Research Center in East Liberty.
Baldwin’s personal determination literally drove him past the competition. He won the new car.
“You have to be serious out there,” Baldwin said. “You don’t use a car as a toy. It’s a means of transportation.”
The driving portion of the contest timed how quickly students could get through the course, but Van Winkle said the layout of cones forced contestants to drive at an appropriate speed. If they drove too fast, the car knocked over the cones and each tipped cone cost another four seconds added to their final run time.
“It’s about being calm and knowing what to do,” Van Winkle said. “You have to use reason and common sense.”
After winning the car, Baldwin shared his stories from the essay.
“We were all in tears,” Van Winkle said. “A lot of us didn’t know.”
Baldwin said he will continue to share the stories. While he said many of his friends were mostly excited to take a drive in the new car, Baldwin hopes they’ll also take the time to listen about the safety skills he learned.