Mt. Carmel Student Wins National Safe Driving Video Contest
(CBS) -- A teenager from Chicago is the winner of a nationwide video contest, aimed at promoting safe driving among teens, reports WBBM's Regine Schlesinger.
18-year-old Elijah Wilborn, a senior at Mt. Carmel High School on the South Side, was shocked when the promoters of the contest, Toyota and Discovery Education, showed up at school to tell him he'd won and hand him a $15,000 check as his prize. For his video, Elijah recruited friends to dress in t-shirts labelled as common distractions - a blaring radio, a cellphone and a friend telling him to look at some girls on the street. Finally, he pulls over and throws them out of the car.
Elijah confesses he's been guilty of some of the bad driving behaviors he shows in his video but, says he's committed now to driving safely.
"Now, I've sort of stopped that, texting while driving or blasting the radio, but the temptation's very, very high," he said.
An aspiring filmmaker, Elijah will see his video turned into a professionally-produced public service announcement that will air on television. Next fall, he'll study filmmaking at the University of California-Santa Barbara.