Teens Get Valuable Life Lesson

“Don’t Drink and Drive.” It’s not a suggestion, it’s a mandatory rule every driver should obey. For young teenage drivers, it especially needs to be presented clearly to ensure they get the message.

Every year around this time, the teams up with the to present a valuable lesson to students in the Junior and Senior classes to prevent them from ever being tempted to get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated.

Thursday morning the students took part in the fun and interactive way of really clearly getting the “Don’t Drink and Drive” message. The students learn the facts in the Driver’s Ed classroom but the police demonstration is able to give them a real perspective of how much alcohol can impair one’s vision and ability to operate a moving vehicle.

Police Chief Michael Colaneri, Captain Jack DeLorenzo, Sgt. Joe Rinke and Officer John Behr set up a driving course on the Hitchcock Field behind the high school. The demonstration involves students taking turns driving golf carts around a course lined with orange cones.

First the students drive around the track under normal conditions. Second he or she puts on fatal vision goggles- special goggles designed to impair vision to show one how difficult operating a vehicle under the influence can be. Running over the cones would be the equivalent of actually running over three people so to speak if this were compared to a real life situation, Chief Colaneri explained.

Students had a choice of putting on the day fatal vision or night fatal vision goggles. The night vision for example gives one’s vision a dark greenish tint. Vision is blurred slightly and depth perception is also altered making it difficult to turn corners within the course and maneuver the golf cart in a straight line – as one would have trouble operating a vehicle on a real road under the influence.

The fatal vision goggles did their job of showing the students how difficult it can be to drive under such conditions, as most of the students who took the wheel wearing them could not drive straight and drove over many cones.

The program is only conducted for Juniors and Seniors as many of the students already have their drivers permits or licenses or are preparing to obtain them.

This exercise is usually conducted in May a few weeks  before the holiday weekend and Senior Prom as a safety measure.