Cons of Driving Unsafe … Without Pros

Amrin Madhani, Reporter|October 23, 2013

During school lunch students went outside to watch "drunk drivers" in action. Watching this demonstration students were enlightened about the dangers of unsafe driving. "I'd always been the kind of person that thinks, 'wow this has nothing to do with me', while that may be true it affects the people around me, people I may know, or people I may have once said hello to," freshman Jason Crunos said. Vote for McNeil at WWW.CelebrateMyDrive.com and help the community become aware of the danger.

Image by Sarah Fincher

During school lunch students went outside to watch “drunk drivers” in action. Watching this demonstration students were enlightened about the dangers of unsafe driving. “I’d always been the kind of person that thinks, ‘wow this has nothing to do with me’, while that may be true it affects the people around me, people I may know, or people I may have once said hello to,” freshman Jason Crunos said. Vote for McNeil at WWW.CelebrateMyDrive.com and help the community become aware of the danger.

 

The assembly for Celebrate My Drive held Thursday, Oct. 17 drew attention to the issue of safe driving.

Principal John Yonker started off by speaking about the importance of safe driving and how not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences.

“The majority of teen deaths are caused by driving mishaps,” Yonker said. “That’s more than substance abuse, suicide, and kidnappings combined.”

Students and faculty members shared personal experiences about how unsafe driving affected them from losing family members, having friends injured, and even enduring personal injury.

Drinking and Driving, Texting and Driving, not wearing a seat belt, putting make up on while driving and other distractions can be the cause of a tragedy.

Those anecdotes, combined with the serious atmosphere, impacted students.

“I used to think that just because it happened to others it won’t happen to me. But  I was wrong,” junior Jenna Thompson said. “I could be one of those victims that had no idea what was coming and it makes me think, those other people were just like me so why can’t it happen to me? People need to be more safe and take this more seriously.”

During all lunches on Friday, select students had the opportunity to see how if felt while being drunk and driving. They were given goggles that blurred vision and golf carts to drive. With utmost protection and safety, these students drove around the parking lot of the Performing Arts Center.

“I tried those goggles in my health class,” sophomore Merilyn Castire said. “There are different levels of intoxication. Even the lightest one was misleading.”

According to MADD statistics one out of three drunk drivers will die in a car crash.

Awareness like Celebrate My Drive and other safe driving programs have decreased the amounts of drunk driving in teen cases. Even though it is still the largest life-taking factor it has decreased 20 percent, according to The Century Council: Fighting Drunk Driving and Underage Drinking.

Celebrate My Drive, in addition to making students more aware of driving safely, will give the school with the most votes a private Kelly Clarkson concert. To vote for McNeil, go to www.CelebrateMyDrive.com.