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Distracted Driving

LaHood Takes Sides in Miss America Contest

4:09 PM EST on January 10, 2011

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's latest blog post urges readers to support Loren Vaillancourt - Miss South Dakota - to become the next Miss America. After all, as her YouTube promo states, she can save lives.

Vaillancourt lost her brother to a distracted-driving-related crash last year. According to LaHood, she's partnered with State Farm's "Teen Driver Safety" Facebook page, posting her video diary there during the pageant week.

LaHood lists four ways his blog readers can vote for Vaillancourt for Miss America and probably gets more partisan than most cabinet secretaries in Miss America contests when he says, "For all that she has done in this fight, she has my vote this week. I hope you'll consider giving her yours."

Tanya Snyder@
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radio’s Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.

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