Effective Ways to Teach Young People the Dangers of Drinking and Driving: Going Too Far?

Apparently this is old news, but its something I had not seen or heard of before. On this morning's episode of Rachael Ray she had Whoopi Goldberg on the show for a segment of 'Going to Far?" Rachael and Whoopi went through news stories and discussed whether or not they were going to far or not. I found this particular part to be interesting. I wondered what everyone else thought.

In 2008, there was a California high school that teamed up with highway patrol to stage a lesson for their students. The news articles and the research I have done on this says that a Highway Patrolman would visit classrooms and tell the students that someone in their class had died over the weekend from drunk driving. They would say a eulogy and place a rose on the student's desk.

When they left the classroom, the students were left to contemplate the news. Some students were traumatized and went into hysterics. The missing students were named to their fellow classmates and were asked to be absent from school that day to make the lesson more realistic. The aftermath of the rest of the student body's reaction was what the school was looking for. Quoted from the news article, "They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized. That's how they get the message."

I do believe that drunk driving is a serious problem in our day in age. For people of all ages, the threat of a drunk driver or being a drunk driver is a real one. In my own school, they had us go out on the lawn and witness a dramatization of a drunk driver. Fellow students were staged thrown through the windshield, stuck in the glass, laying on the ground, blood everywhere. The cars wrapped around a tree and it was indeed a powerful message.

In my own life, I was sixteen when I got into the car with a drunk driver and we were headed to a party in my best friend's car. Not only was she not in the car, it was being driven by a man I didn't know and we were following the rest of the cars. We got a good block from our starting point, the driver did not see the stop sign or the turn at the T in the road. He jumped a ditch about fifty feet and we ended up in the field. The airbag exploded in my face and the seatbelt cut up my shoulder and neck. I was forever changed that day. I have since been scared to death to ride in a car and I will not ride with anyone who had had even 1 beer.

I am twenty six years old and I know that there are plenty of people out there that think it won't happen to them. I am here to say - it can happen to you. I was in a wreck with my best friend's car and it was totaled. Which was the most damage that happened as far as lives lost and injuries, not much to tell. I was lucky.  My face was cut and bruised and my nerves were shot, but some people aren't so lucky.

At first, when I saw this segment, I thought that the school was going to far. I still don't know if I like the idea of students being lied to by their school teachers and faculty. The goal was to traumatize the students and make an impact, but I think that are other effective ways to do it. I can imagine that the school did get the shock and impact they were looking for. For that I want to applaud them.

However, I put myself in the parents' shoes. If my kid came home traumatized like that, would I be okay with it? Given my own personal experience with drunk driving, I still can't really decide. I suppose it begs the question of what would you do? Would you be infuriated if a school took this approach with your children, or would you be thankful? I think I am conflicted. 

When driving people should not be drinking or talking on the phone. I admit I do talk on the phone and text every now and then, but usually I am at a stop sign or stop light. I know its a habit that even I need to break. So, with that said, I wonder would this type of approach stopped me from getting in that car when I was sixteen? Who knows. What do you think?