What’s Your Opinion: Drunk Driving Hoax To Scare Teens Out Of Drinking And Driving - With Video

June 10th, 2008 Posted By Bash.

1

What do you think of this approach?

Many juniors and seniors were driven to tears – a few to near hysterics – May 26 when a uniformed police officer arrived in several classrooms to notify them that a fellow student had been killed in a drunken-driving accident.

The officer read a brief eulogy, placed a rose on the deceased student’s seat, then left the class members to process their thoughts and emotions for the next hour.

The program, titled “Every 15 Minutes,” was designed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Its title refers to the frequency in which a person somewhere in the country dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

About 10 a.m., students were called to the athletic stadium, where they learned that their classmates had not died. There, a group of seniors, police officers and firefighters staged a startlingly realistic alcohol-induced fatal car crash. The students who had purportedly died portrayed ghostly apparitions encircling the scene.

Though the deception left some teens temporarily confused and angry, if it makes even one student think twice before getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, it is worth the price, said California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Newbury, who orchestrates the program at local high schools.

(SOSD)


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15 Responses

  1. Clutch250f

    Great approach, the kids need to learn how their fuck ups impact everyone else.

  2. GregGS

    I think it’s bull shit that makes individual not trust authorities … just another scam in their minds. I say a good video of EMTs’ cutting people out of cars on a friday night, or a stint keeping clean and Emergency room on a Saturday night will make them think twice about cars drinking drugs hanging around violent idiots and areas at night.

  3. WJC

    Revolting!!

    Mind manipulation!

    There are so many Police now looking for DUI that alone is enough to scare the shit out of anyone driving drunk.

  4. Cooper

    Interesting; but overall, a big waste of money, time, and resources. These types of lessons show the effects of a horrible car wreck…nobody has to be taught that it’s horrible and tragic. The whole “don’t drink and drive” lesson has to be taught and enforced at home by the parents. The threat of strict punishment at home if I was caught with even just a beer or two on my breath was a much greater deterrant than any school program. The hellfire my dad would bestow upon me if I was caught drinking and driving was far worse than any ticket/fine/punishment the police could toss my way.

  5. Steve in NC

    What the hell is that?

    Immature stunt that just fosters stupid reactionary thought and actions.

    ..

    Show them picks of real crashes, have an assembly addressed by someone who has lost loved ones due to drunk driving. Show them reality not this fantasy bullshit that is dismissed as such.

  6. Erik Marsh

    Useless and Dangerous

  7. blastdad( typical white patriot)

    Make it real to them!!

    Remember the ” Scared Straight ” program, took young offenders to the prisons and let the murders, rapist and thugs have them for a couple hours. It was a big attitude adjustment for kids who thought they were pretty tough.

    Reality works every time it’s tried.

  8. franchie

    “Mind manipulation!”

    can’t be this effect that is researched, but more something like an emotional electro-choc ;

    can be good for some, but can handicapt a few that will get afraid of driving a car for the rest of their life.

    pics of persons that got “venerian illnesses” in the Navy happen to have a positive effect ;

    dunno if the accident pics would be instructive, cause we have them all days long on TV, and we don’t pay attention to them anymore

  9. dirtman

    What if the students pulled a stunt like that on the faculty and police. someone would be in trouble. Tricking students with the death of friends is no way to garner respect. I’d be pissed if they did that to me.
    Educate with tape from wrecks and ER, the biggest hurdle would be the “It will never happen to me” mentality.

  10. LadyAngler

    This is not a new concept. We had one of these in my high school. It was sponsored by MADD/SADD. The mock crash was actually very interesting. My mother, an ED nurse, was one of the mock responders. The students that “died” wore black and white face paint for the remainder of the day and weren’t allowed to speak to anyone. It actually was a good exercise.

    I’m not really in favor of the police entering school and lying about a girl’s death. That’s pretty brutal IMO.

  11. DC

    This is clearly a bullshit way of revisiting a method that has never worked. We had to watch “grisly”, bloody films in school of REAL wrecks when I was getting of age to drive, and they did little or nothing to dissuade teens from drunk driving.

    I personally believe it begins in the home. Never allow your kids to see you driving while intoxicated…..it only reinforces that behavior in the open minds of teens.

  12. Kurt(the infidel)

    I agree that the lessons of whether to drive drunk or not starts at home. Im opposed to the fact that they mentioned a specific student but not opposed to the program itself although im not convinced that it works

  13. kg

    The students know no one has really died.

    In fact the students are pulled out during class and are specifically chosen from the different groups from around campus so that most kids in school know one of the ‘victims’. The grim reaper walks into class with a CHP officer, the previously determined student is pulled from class and then the CHP reads the accident report…. “so and so was killed this morning by a drunk driver….” etc. More students are pulled out during the day.. basically, one every 15 min, and once they’re pulled from class, they’re not seen again until the next day.

    Along with that a fake accident is staged with other students. It uses real police, ambulance, mediflight helicopter and body bags to dramatize the event. The ‘dead’ are zipped up into body bags and taken away.

    All the students participating in the event spend the night away from their family and friends no contact, no cellphones. They go through various discussion groups discussing the events. The students then write a letter to the parents and receive a letter from their parents and the situation becomes very emotional.

    The next day the juniors and seniors are brought together in the assembly where then see an edited video showing the continuation of the accident..the emergency room, the jail, the morgue.

    Parents come and identify bodies and the mothers always bursts into real tears as they see their son/daughter in a body bag. Fathers get choked up as they give permission to donate the organs… really powerful imagery, especially since all the victims and parents are known by the students in the audience.

    There is even a portion where the drunk driver (a student) is taken and booked into jail.

    Students then read their letters to mom and dad to the audience and parents read the letters they wrote to their son/daughter who has just ‘died’.

    Then the real victims speak. Local family members of people killed by drunk drivers speak and tell their stories. There are tears everywhere, guys and girls… some of them openly bawling.

    I really don’t know how effective the program is but for those days that it takes place at our school it is a very powerful thought provoking experience for the students.

  14. JS

    And how many police officers does this take off the street? Keeping them from doing their real job, aka, catching criminals?

    The Drunk Driving crusade has become nothing but a neo-temperance movement in the private sector, and a major cash cow for the public sector. The statistics for drunk driving deaths, or shall I say “alcohol related deaths” are inflated only as a tool to drive government to pass more oppressive laws that will eventually criminalize you for having two glasses of wine at dinner.

    If we spent the time, money, energy, and political gamesmanship making sure real criminals get locked away and stay away countless more lives would be saved.

  15. PDizzle

    I remember similar stunts like this when I was in high school. I couldn’t help but laught at the dipshits who cried when they found out that their freinds “died.” This kind of stuff never workes for me.

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