By Janice Morse
Enquirer staff writer

Sarah Turner was traveling a little over the 55-mph speed limit when her car crashed.

But at 17, she was an inexperienced driver. She wasn't wearing a seat belt. And something apparently diverted her attention as she drove to her job at a Mason restaurant Thursday afternoon, police said Friday.

Turner, of Middletown, who would have entered Lebanon High School as a senior this fall, likely would have survived if she had been wearing a seat belt, investigators said.

"If she would have had her seat belt on, personally, I think she would have stood a real good chance of surviving the crash," said Sgt. Pete Combs of the Ohio State Highway Patrol's Lebanon post.

Turner was pronounced dead at the scene.

She is among 21 Greater Cincinnati teens who have died in car crashes since January - most of whom also were not wearing seat belts when they crashed.

Excluding a motorcyclist and five cases where seat-belt use couldn't be determined, 13 of the dead teens were not belted; three wore a shoulder belt or lap belt, but not both.

About 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Turner was driving west on Wilmington Road in Turtlecreek Township, the road her mother, Debra Miller, lives on. She was alone in the car.

Investigators found marks about a half-mile east of Oregonia Road, indicating that her red 2004 Chevy Cavalier went off the road. Because the road is straight there, investigators have concluded that something must have distracted her.

"Who knows what happened in there that took her eyes off the road?" Combs said.

Apparently, as she was headed off the road, she swerved too hard the other way, sending the Cavalier off the other side of the road and into a ditch. The car went airborne and hit a utility pole, Combs said.

"The telephone pole was completely snapped in two pieces, and the car was actually wedged between the two," he said.

The car's air bags did not deploy because the bumper area, which contains sensors to activate the airbags, wasn't stuck hard enough, Combs said. The car's roof and windshield took the most impact, which threw Turner into the windshield, he said. If she had been wearing her seat belt, "she would have stayed in her seat."

"I think the message is that, when you're in a car, focus just on driving. We've got so many things in our cars to distract us," he said. "And buckle up. It's almost always in your favor to have that seat belt on."

A man who said he was Turner's father was silent as he wiped tears from his eyes during a visit to the crash site Friday morning. Sarah, who lived with him in Middletown, was a member of the marching band, 4-H and Future Business Leaders of America at Lebanon High School.

The Oswald-Hoskins Funeral Home, 329 E. Mulberry St., Lebanon, is handling arrangements.

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Sue Kiesewetter and Glenn Hartong contributed to this report.

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com