Johnson Students Experience the Effects of Drunk Driving

With officers stading by their sides, Arthur L. Johnson High School students experienced what it would be like to walk a sobriety test drunk at a level twice the legal limit.

Others practiced driving go-karts through an obstacle course at the same level of intoxication, only their vehicles were controlled by a paramedic manning an infrared scanner on the top of the vehicle making it act "drunk" to mimic erratic and dangerous driving.

The scenarios above were part of a drunk driving program led Friday by members of the NorthSTAR Medevac Flight Team, the Clark Volunteer Rescue Squad, and Youth Aide officers from Clark and Garwood. The program consisted of a three-station setup in the school's gymnasium representing the effects of alcohol and distractions on driving, and concluded with an impactful presentation for juniors and seniors.

The program is alternated yearly with a similar program, the Every 15 Minutes campaign, which last year included a staged accident scene on Westfield Avenue. 

“The purpose of the program is to remind students of the dangers of driving impaired or driving while texting so that they don’t get injured,” Johnson Principal Rick Delmonaco said. “That is why we scheduled this before the prom and the senior dinner, so it keeps this fresh on their mind and they won’t drink and drive.”

The first station was a field sobriety test that allowed students to wear goggles that duplicated the effects of increased blood alcohol levels as well as marijuana use. The test required a student to wear the goggles and attempt to walk in a straight line marked on the floor.

Station two was the “Distract-o-Match” game, which required an individual to match different colored shapes on a board while counting down from one-hundred and hearing their voice echo using headphones. The test is designed to demonstrate the effects distractions have on a person trying to complete simple tasks, explained the specific purposes of this demonstration.

“This is to show that if you are asking your brain to do multiple tasks at once, one or more of the tasks will fail,” said Bill O’Brien, a NorthSTAR Medevac Flight Pilot. "We ask our brains to do multiple tasks when operating a motor vehicle, and when you start to add unnecessary tasks such as listening to the radio and text messaging, you are going to overload the brain to the point where one or more of the tasks will fail.”

Throughout the demonstration, it became apparent to the seniors just how difficult completing the tasks was while being distracted.

“Is the failure going to be the text messaging that you try to do?" asked O'Brien. "Is it going to be the song that you can’t sing right? Or is it going to be that you don’t think quick enough to put your foot on the brake fast enough and you wind up injuring somebody?” 

The final challenge students faced was the one they enjoyed most: in the safe confines of a controlled course, students each had the opportunity to drive a go-kart while NorthSTAR Flight Paramedic Michael Carrig controlled an infrared scanner on top of the vehicle that made it act “drunk.” Carrig had control of the go-kart’s acceleration and braking, as well as unexpected changes in the steering. Laughs erupted all day from the waiting students as cones and a cardboard cut-out of a dog continuously became victims of the drunk driving.

Seniors Alex Wilson and Biagio Rimmaudo enjoyed the exercise, but recognized the anxiety caused by the lack of control of the vehicle. “It was hard to recognize the changes in the steering initially until you noticed yourself gradually drifting off of the road, it was scary,” Wilson said. 

“While the opportunity to drive the car was fun, the blurred vision caused by the goggles and the inability to guide the driver really showed me just how scary it can be,” Rimmaudo said.

Using YouTube videos and public service announcements, as well as their own personal accounts as experienced Medevac personnel, a powerful message was conveyed to students that drove some to tears: Don’t drink or text and drive.

At the end of the day, juniors and seniors gathered in the auditorium for a presentation by Carrig and O’Brien. “You guys are some of the smartest people I have ever met, and I’m not talking about tests,” Carrig said. “I’m talking about how to drive your car at 90 miles per hour, putting makeup on, smoking a cigarette, drinking a coca-cola and changing the radio at the same time.”

Carrig then urged the students to make a plan, whether it is with friends or family instead of getting in the car and drinking and driving.

Junior Todd Salkins summed up the impact of the day in only a few words. “I was always against drinking and driving,” Salkins said. “In seeing the videos today all the students were saying that the presentation completely opened their eyes to the serious damage that drinking and driving can have on anyone, not just the driver or passenger.”