High school students experience driving impaired with arrive simulator

CLARK COUNTY — Prom and graduation season is underway across the Miami Valley and schools are looking to keep students safe.

>>Building at Dayton Children’s Hospital to be closed today after crash, ruptured gas line

Teens are more likely to die in crashes than drivers who are 20 years and old, according to the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration.

News Center 7′s Nick Foley was at a local high school on Friday when the Clark County Health Department brought a special simulator for students.

“It’s like I thought I was doing good, and I was not,” one student said.

Sophomore Samantha Russell learned firsthand what driving impaired after drinking alcohol looked like.

“Because like even with just like a point-eleven, I couldn’t even stay in my lane,” she said. “I couldn’t stay within the lines.”

>>Officers investigating after being called to Miami Township home

Foley said the arrive simulator gives drivers a sense of what it is like to be behind the wheel while under the influence of alcohol and marijuana and even texting while driving. It is a danger first responders know all too well.

“If we can save one life. that’s one life we’ve saved,” said Deputy John Loney, Tecumseh High School resources officer. “And the goal was to save as many as we can. But you know, through education programs like this, that’s what we want to do. We want to get our kids experienced and or, you know, have the knowledge of it.”

It is knowledge that Russell admits she may not have fully grasped before.

“It definitely made me feel more real. Like you hear about you hear about stories that are happening but you never like actually feel the gravity of it,” she told Foley. “So, it definitely is. You leave today with kind of a new sense of the dangers.”

The Arrive Alive Tour is the nation’s number-one ranked drunk and distracted driving awareness event.

©2024 Cox Media Group