The Times News and Lehigh Valley Press co-sponsored the 2016 It Can Wait Essay Contest in conjunction with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association Foundation and AT&T.

The winner competed at state level for a $500 prize.State winner:By Kyleigh Balint, sophomore, Sullivan County High School, LaporteAs submitted to The Sullivan Review, Dushore.Picture this: you get a text from your best friend about her new boyfriend. You quickly glance at your phone and you feel it. Your seat belt burns the bare skin on your neck and your head snaps forward from the tremendous momentum of hitting another car. The airbag flies out in a half-second, your face whacks the bag, the thick fabric deflates and you see the gruesome sight of death. The woman's lifeless body is lying on the hood of her car and you hear her baby wailing inside the vehicle. You struggle to get out of the cramped space, but your legs are pinned between the seat and the wheel. You can't do anything about the baby, and you hear the helpless cry fade.The guilt rises over your body and you know the thought, sight, and feeling of an unnecessary death, the unanswered cries of an infant who will never know what it's like to experience the touch, the words, and the love of a mother again. A few days after your life-altering text you must face the world and the guilt that stems from court, judges, police officers, your horrified parents, and the motherless family of the deceased.You know that you must face the ramifications of social isolation, the whispers, the stares, the looks that come from your once friends. As you walk through the crowded halls of school you feel the insurmountable weight of judgmental thoughts and glares being directed like daggers at your soul and life meaning.They don't know the guilt, regret, and hurt you feel from the sheer thought of your deadly mistake. It rises from the pit of your stomach to the depths of your heart, the lump of your throat, and finally to the tears in your eyes.Every night before bed you hear the horrendous cries of the baby, the heinous images of the appalling sight that haunts your dreams and flashes before your eyes. The feeling of that moment bolts through your body and consumes your mind constantly. You don't want tomorrow to arrive at your doorstep with the pressure of life and living with your misjudgment of priorities.Texting and driving is a deadly mistake that many people, not just teens, make. The consequences of this unnecessary event are a tremendous burden to bear. It's not just you that is affected by this; it is the people around you that must deal with what you have done. You have a life ahead of you, why ruin it for a text? It can wait.Take the pledge.LOCAL WINNERS:First Place: William Pelletiers12th Grade Liberty High SchoolBethlehem.Imagine driving down a busy road, anytime of day. Now imagine closing your eyes and counting to five before opening them again. Most people would find this ridiculous, unsafe, and quite idiotic. Who would knowingly close their eyes while driving? Well, the average text takes five seconds to send, and there is no difference between looking at your phone, and closing your eyes for the same amount of time.For most people, nothing will ever come of them texting and driving. But for those who do cause an accident, change their lives forever. People who are very unlucky lose their lives. Others become paralyzed, total their cars, and hurt totally innocent people. Sometimes people forget that their own actions may affect other people around them. It is not always the person texting who isn't able to walk away from the crash.I've seen friends, family members, and even total strangers around me texting while driving. I know that none of them think about that they are not only holding their own lives in their hands, but also mine, the other passengers, and every single person around them. While you might think it would be awful for your family to find out you had been in an accident, imagine seeing a total stranger's family finding out that you were the one responsible for a crash. It's a guilt that doesn't go away.We as people can come together and agree not to text and drive. We can educate each other, talk to our friends and family and as them to do the same. We can make a difference by talking about it and hopefully, one day texting and driving won't be responsible for a quarter of the car crashes in the United States. Don't let it be your family who has to find out you were in an accident. Besides, your dog will never understand why you never came home. Truly, it CAN wait and we CAN make a difference.Second Place: Brendan Reilly12th Grade, Liberty High SchoolBethlehemThe "send" button is hit. Eyes snap seamlessly back to the road. All clear, no problems here. "My fingers won't distract me from the road," thinks this young adult as he drives on without a thought of the risks under which he has just put himself.One can pinpoint this as the problem: the "it won't happen to me" thought process. It only takes one successfully sent text message from behind the wheel for a driver's mind to be polluted with the false notion that texting while driving does not put one in any serious danger. It is particularly easy for a new driver to be swayed by the simplicity of texting-to be convinced that something so small is inconsequential to one's safety on the road. Their lack of experience is largely to blame for this; they are yet to see the true horrors of vehicular accidents, and understand the causes and saddening frequency of them.It only takes one example. Upon the death of one peer, every teen around him will learn a lesson and treat driving with more caution. The sting of loss is powerful enough to hammer the truth into one's head-that texting can kill. When thinking about the death of a peer, a shockingly quick end to a life that has just begun, one is easily convinced to cease his texting and driving habits. However, it should not be necessary to need a lesson. Though it is effective, no young adult deserves to become a lesson to his or her peers. The real challenge is elucidating to today's youth that they can prevent these "lessons." Nobody will lose a life when everybody is mutually safe on the road. When the youth can understand how vulnerable they are behind the wheel, and that it is unnecessary to make oneself even more vulnerable through the use of a cell phone, they will hold their lives more carefully.Don't wait to hear news of the death of a peer, friend, or loved one. You don't need it to be convinced of the dangers of texting while driving. And most importantly, you must avoid becoming a lesson to others. I call upon you, reader, to have the foresight to survive.Third Place - Meghan Danny10th Grade, Pleasant Valley High SchoolBrodheadsvilleAs teens, we are in such a vulnerable position. Our minds are developing and growing each and every day. The faster we realize the dangers behind texting and driving, and why we should wait to use our cellular devices, the better. It takes one second; one second for everything to change. And each second we spend ignoring that concept, the more time we lose. We cannot let ourselves become a statistic. We are more than that. We are worth so much more than a text. In the moment it will almost if not always seem so mainstream, nothing that's ever overthought about, and it's sad that so many people realize too late what we really jeopardize every time we are distracted by our cell phones when driving.And what's more, it's a lot easier than most people think! We live in a society where it may actually feel like an inconvenience to wait, or an annoyance, but they say if you practice a routine for a minimum of 30 days, it'll become permanent. It's crazy to think 30 days of change for the better could save us our lives. It may sound trivial, but it is so worth it. If you can remember a time when you wished you appreciated something earlier, you can understand that it's an awful feeling. No one should have to deal with the internal struggle of regret over something that we can control so easily!Take the pledge. Save your life. Your worth is more prominent than you know. And if you still won't take the pledge for yourself, do it for those around you. Everyone's life is on the line when you decide to text and drive."The only time you should text and drive is when what you have to say is more important than your very life." - Anonymous