Joey Cruz sat down at a simulated car on the stage of the West Leyden auditorium. The simulated car has brakes, steering wheel and seatbelt. Instead of windows, three video screens portray a view from his front, right and left sides and small boxes on the screens show rear and side views.
Cruz starts off driving normally, going the 25 mph posted on signs and stopping at intersections. The longer he drives, however, the more erratic he becomes from delays in braking to extra wide turns to driving against traffic. The simulation ends with a cracked windshield as he crashes into a car at a stop sign.
“It was really hard,” said Cruz, a 17-year-old who has been driving in the real world for about a year. “It was difficult to tell when I was going fast.”
Nor did other students do particularly well. There were more crashes in an hour than the Indy 500 sees in decades. The driving program is set up that way to make a point, said Anthony Lawrence, one of the instructors on the Save A Life Tour.
“You are sober,” explained Lawrence to students. “The car is drunk. You are driving a drunk car.”
Estefany Fuentecilla, 18, tried out the drunk driving simulation.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “If you can’t handle it here, how can you handle it while you’re drunk?”
The tour came to both West and East Leyden high schools as part of the annual Safe Celebration Week held before spring break. The topics change from year to year but always have to do with making good decisions said teacher Bill Heisler who helped organize the event.
Besides drunk driving there was also a simulation for driving while texting. Students see different simulated environments on a video screen — downtown, residential, rural with mountains — and drive while holding a cell phone in their lap. Every 30 seconds they get a text which they are required to read and respond to while driving.
“It was difficult,” said Jacob Bas, 17. “It definitely distracted you while you were on the phone. I rode it all the way (but) was more on the road shoulder.”
While texting is likely the most common distraction for drivers, it’s not the only one.
“I saw a lady painting her nails with her foot outside the window while driving down the highway,” Lawrence said. “I saw a passenger hold the wheel while the driver was leaned over the back dealing with the kids. I saw someone reading a newspaper.”
Some of the students treated the simulations more as an arcade game with students around them laughing as they drove at high speeds and crashed into simulated buildings. Lawrence hopes they still get the point.
“Even though they might not treat it here seriously, they go home and hopefully remember it,” Lawrence said.
